In part #’s 1 through 6 of this series, I have addressed the many errors in identifying who are “the beast of the field”. With this paper, I will review some of the main points we have discovered concerning this Biblical expression, from various sources. In paper # 3, I gave evidence from Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary, volume 1 of 6, pages 47-50 under “Notes On Chapter III”, and especially on the terms “nachash” and “beast” at Genesis 3:1 that the “devil” and the “ape” have the same name! Also that “Satan” is equivalent to “orangutan”. Clarke went to great lengths to try to make sense out of this passage, even going to the Arabic, as many Hebrew scholars do, when needing to understand a critical root word.
Summing up Clarke’s findings on this subject it boils down to: “We have seen… khanas, akhnas, and khanoos, signify a creature of the ape or satyrus kind. We have seen that the meaning of the root is, he lay hid, seduced, slunk away, &c.; and that khanas means the devil, as the inspirer of evil, and seducer from God and truth. See Golius and Wilmet. It therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or ouran outang (orangutan) kind is here intended; ... Is it not strange that the devil and the ape should have the same name, derived from the same root, and that root so very similar to the word in the text [meaning the Hebrew nachash - WRF]?”
Then I went on in part # 3 to show how Clarke was in agreement with the Dead Sea Scrolls! From the book, The Dead Sea Scrolls, A New Translation by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr. and Edward Cook, ©1996, on page 247, a translation of 1Q23, fragments 1 + 6: “1 [... two hundred] 2 donkeys, two hundred asses, two hund[red ... rams of the] 3 flock, two hundred goats, two hundred [... beast of the] 4 field from every animal, from every [bird ...] 5 [...] for miscegenation [...]”. [underlining mine]
These fragments are from the oldest known manuscripts of The Book Of Giants reputedly written by Enoch whom we are told “... walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”, (Genesis 5:24).
Also in part # 3 in this series, I presented further evidence that Adam Clarke is not the only one to declare that satyr means “ape”. From A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell & Scott, page 1232, on the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word “satyr” we find the following definition: “ὁνοκένταυρα, ἡ, or ὁνοκένταυρος, ὁ, a kind of tailless ape, Ael. NA 17.9. 2. a kind of demon haunting wild places, LXX Is. 13:22, 34:11, 14.” Notice especially Isaiah 34:14! What better description could be given of a negroid than a “tailless ape”?