mous, mis (`akhbar; Septuagint mus, "mouse"; compare Arabic `akbar, "jerboa" not 'akbar, "greater"; compare also proper noun, `akhbor, "Achbor" (Genesis 36:38 f; 1 Chronicles 1:49; also 2 Kings 22:12,14; Jeremiah 26:22; 36:12)): The word occurs in the list of unclean "creeping things" (Leviticus 11:29), in the account of the golden mice and tumors (the King James Version and the American Revised Version margin "emerods") sent by the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:4-18), and in the phrase, "eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse" (Isaiah 66:17). The cosmopolitan housemouse, Mus musculus, is doubtless the species referred to. The jerboa or jumping mouse, Arabic yarbu, is eaten by the Arabs of the Syrian desert, Northeast of Damascus. Possibly allied to `akhbar is the Arabic `akbar (generally in plural, `akabir), used for the male of the jerboa.

Alfred Ely Day

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Are you a good person? Try the good person test.