SHREWMICE

This translates the Hebrew word hhaphar·pa·rohthʹ, also rendered “moles,” “rats” and “mice.” (Isa. 2:20, AV, Mo, Ro) The original-language term is considered to be derived from a root signifying, “to dig, to burrow,” and therefore a number of scholars have suggested that it may denote any of a variety of burrowing animals, including rats, mice, mole rats, jerboas and the like. However, according to Koehler and Baumgartner (Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, p. 322), hhaphar·pa·rohthʹ designates “shrewmice.”

This creature is a small, mouselike animal covered with fine, short fur. It has a long, slender snout, tiny eyes and rounded ears with a rather crumpled appearance. Of enormous appetite, shrewmice can devour their own weight in food about every three hours. They subsist largely on insects and worms, although also feeding on small animals their own size and larger, such as mice. Among the several varieties of shrewmice found in Palestine by the nineteenth-century naturalist H. B. Tristram were the common shrew and the much smaller pigmy shrew.