FLY. 1. zebûb , Ecclesiastes 10:1 , Isaiah 7:18 : also Baal-zebub [wh. see]. 2. ‘arôb , Exodus 8:21 etc., the insects of one of the plagues of Egypt, thought by some to have been cockroaches. Flies of many kinds, mosquitoes, ‘sand-files,’ etc., swarm in Palestine and Egypt. In summer any sweet preparation left uncovered is at once defiled by flies falling into it ( Ecclesiastes 10:1 ). Flies carry ophthalmia and infect food with the micro-organisms of other diseases, e.g. cholera, enteric fever, etc. They frequently deposit their eggs in uncleanly wounds and discharging ears, and these eggs develop into maggots. Special flies, in Africa at any rate, carry the trypanosoma , which produce fatal disease in cattle and ‘sleeping sickness’ in man. Mosquitoes, which may have been included in the ‘arôb (the ‘swarms of flies’) in Egypt, are now known to be the carriers of the poison of malaria, the greatest scourge of parts of Palestine.
E. W. G. Masterman.