his ( שׁרק , shāraḳ ): "To hiss" has two applications: (1) to call, (2) to express contempt or scorn.
(1) It is the translation of shāraḳ , a mimetic word meaning to hiss or whistle, to call (bees, etc.), ( a ) Isaiah 5:26 , "I will hiss unto them from the ends of the earth," the Revised Version (British and American) "hiss for them (margin "him") from the end of the earth"; Isaiah 7:18 , "Yahweh will hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria"; namely, Egyptians whose land was noted for flies ( Isaiah 18:1 ) and Assyrians whose country was pre-eminently one of bees. Dangerous enemies are compared to bees in Deuteronomy 1:44; Psalm 118:12 (Skinner's Isaiah ): Zechariah 10:8 , "I will hiss for them, and gather them" (His own people, who will come at His call).
(2) More often, to hiss is to express contempt or derision (1 Kings 9:8; Job 27:23; Jeremiah 19:8 , etc.). In this sense we have also frequently a hissing ( 2 Chronicles 29:8; Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 25:9 , Jeremiah 25:18; Jeremiah 29:18; Jeremiah 51:37; Micah 6:16 , sherēḳāh ); Jeremiah 18:16 , sherı̄ḳōth or sherūḳōth ; Ecclesiasticus 22:1, "Every one will hiss him (the slothful man) out in his disgrace" (eksurı́ssō , "to hiss out"); The Wisdom of Solomon 17:9, "hissing of serpents" (surigmós ).
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) was edited by James Orr, John Nuelsen, Edgar Mullins, Morris Evans, and Melvin Grove Kyle and was published complete in 1939. This web site includes the complete text.
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