Ape

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

קרפ , κηφος and κηπος , cephus,   1 Kings 10:22;  2 Chronicles 9:21 . This animal seems to be the same with the ceph of the Ethiopians, of which Pliny speaks, 1. viii, c. 19: "At the games given by Pompey the Great," says he, "were shown cephs brought from Ethiopia, which had their fore feet like a human hand, their hind legs and feet also resembled those of a man." The Scripture says that the fleet of Solomon brought apes, or rather monkeys, &c, from Ophir. The learned are not agreed respecting the situation of that country; but Major Wilford says that the ancient name of the River Landi sindh in India was Cophes. May it not have been so called from the קפים inhabiting its banks?

We now distinguish this tribe of creatures into

1. Monkeys, those with long tails;

2. Apes, those with short tails;

3. Baboons, those without tails.

The ancient Egyptians are said to have worshipped apes; it is certain that they are still adored in many places in India. Maffeus describes a magnificent temple dedicated to the ape, with a portico for receiving the victims sacrificed, supported by seven hundred columns.

"With glittering gold and sparkling gems they shine, But apes and monkeys are the gods within."

Figures of apes are also made and reverenced as idols, of which we have several in Moore's "Hindoo Pantheon;" also in the avatars, given in Maurice's "History of India," &c. In some parts of the country the apes are held sacred, though not resident in temples; and incautious English gentlemen, by attempting to shoot these apes, (rather, perhaps, monkeys,) have been exposed, not only to all manner of results and vexations from the inhabitants of the villages, &c, adjacent, but have even been in danger of their lives.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) One who imitates servilely (in allusion to the manners of the ape); a mimic.

(2): (n.) A dupe.

(3): (n.) A quadrumanous mammal, esp. of the family Simiadae, having teeth of the same number and form as in man, and possessing neither a tail nor cheek pouches. The name is applied esp. to species of the genus Hylobates, and is sometimes used as a general term for all Quadrumana. The higher forms, the gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang, are often called anthropoid apes or man apes.

(4): (v. t.) To mimic, as an ape imitates human actions; to imitate or follow servilely or irrationally.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

An animal rudely resembling the human race. The tribe may be familiarly distinguished as monkeys, apes, and baboons. Solomon imported them from Ophir,  1 Kings 10:22   2 Chronicles 9:21 . They were at one time worshipped in Egypt; and still are adored in some parts of India, where one traveller describes a magnificent temple dedicated to the monkey. There may be an allusion to large apes or baboons, literally "hairy ones," in  Leviticus 17:7   Isaiah 13:21   34:13 .

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

APE . Apes were imported along with peacocks from Ophir by Solomon (  1 Kings 10:22 ,   2 Chronicles 9:21 ). In importing monkeys, Solomon here imitated the custom of the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchs, as we now know by the monuments. No kind of monkey is indigenous in Palestine.

E. W. G. Masterman.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The ape is not indigenous to Palestine; they were brought in the days of Solomon, with gold, silver, ivory and peacocks by the ships of Tarshish. The word goph may signify any of the monkey tribe.   1 Kings 10:22;  2 Chronicles 9:21 .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 1 Kings 10:22 2 Chronicles 9:21 Koph_, and by the Greeks _kepos

Holman Bible Dictionary

 1 Kings 10:22 papio hamadrias arabicus

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

קוֹ , Koph ) , an animal of the monkey tribe mentioned in  1 Kings 10:22, and in the parallel passage in  2 Chronicles 9:21, among the merchandise brought by the fleets of Solomon and Hiram once in every three years. The Sept. renders the word by Πίθηκος , which is equivalent to the Latin Simia. The Greeks have the word Κῆβος or Κῆπος , for a longtailed species of monkey (Aristot. Hist. Anim. 2, 8, 9), and Pliny (8, 19, 28) uses Cephus. Both Greeks and Hebrews received the word, with the animal, from India, for the ape, both in Sansc. and Malabar, is called Kapi =swift, active. Hence also the German Affe, the Anglo-Saxon Apa, and the English Ape. The name, under these modifications, designates the Simiadae, including, no doubt, species of Cercopithecus, Macacus, and Cynocephalus, or Guenons, apes and baboons; that is, all the aninals of the quadrumanous order known to the Hebrews, Arabs, Egyptians, and the classical writers. Accordingly, we find Pliny and Solinus speaking of Ethiopian Cephi exhibited at Rome; and in the upper part of the celebrated Praenestine mosaic representing the inundation of the Nile (see Shaw's Travels, p. 423, 2d ed. 4to) figures of Simiads occur in the region which indicates Nubia; among others, one in a tree, with the name Κηιπεν beside it, which may be taken for a Cercopithecus of the Guenon group. But in the triumphal procession of Thothmes III at Thebes nations from the interior of Africa, probably from Nubia, bear curiosities and tributes, among which the camelopardalis or giraffe and six quadrumana may be observed. The Cephs of Ethiopia are described and figured in Ludolfi Historia Ethiopica, 1, 10, § 52-64.

They are represented as tailless animals, climbing rocks, eating worms and ants, and protecting themselves from the attack of lions by casting sand into their eyes. Apes also occur in the lately discovered Assyrian sculptures, both in bas-reliefs on slabs (Layard, Nineveh, 1, 118), and of various species on an obelisk at Nimroud (ib. 2, 330). The Koph of Scripture, named only twice ( 1 Kings 10:22;  2 Chronicles 9:21), is in both cases, associated with תּוֹכַיַּים , Tokiyim, rendered "peacocks." The fleet of Solomen is said to have brought these two kinds of animals from Ophir. Now neither peacocks nor pheasants are indigenous in Africa; they belong to India and the mountains of high Asia, and therefore the version. "peacocks," if correct, would decide, without doubt, not only that Koph denotes none of the Simiadae above noticed, but also that the fleet of Tarshish visited India or the Australasian islands. For these reasons we conclude that the Hebrew Koph, and names of same root, were, by the nations in question, used generically in some instances and specifically in others, though the species were not thereby defined, nor on that account identical. For the natural history of the ape family, see the Penny Cyclopcedia, s.v. For some attempts to identify the various kinds of quadrumana which were known to the ancients, see Lichtenstein's Commentatio Philologica De Simiarum Quotquot Veteribus Innotuerunt Formis (Hamb. 1791), and Tyson's Homo Sylvestris, Or The Anatomy Of A Pigmie (Lond. 1699), to which he has added a philosophical essay concerning the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the ancients. Aristotle ( De Anim. Hist. 2, 5, ed. Schneider) appears to divide the quadrumana order of mammalia into three tribes, which he characterizes by the names Πίθηκοι , Κῆβοι , and Κυνοκέφαλοι . The ancients were acquainted with several kinds of tailed and tailless apes (Plin. Hist. Nat. 8, 80; 11:100; Elian, Anim. 17, 25), and obtained them from Ethiopia (Plin. ut sup.) and India (Ctes. in Phot. Cod. 72, p. 66; Arrian, Ind. 15; AElian- Anim. 17, 25, 39; Philostr. Apoll. 3, 4), but in Mauritania they were domesticated (Strabo, 17:827), as now in Arabia Felix (Niebuhr, Bed. p. 167).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

āp ( קוף , ḳōph ): The word occurs only in the two parallel passages ( 1 Kings 10:22;  2 Chronicles 9:21 ) in which the magnificence of Solomon is illustrated by the things which are brought to him from foreign countries. Apes are mentioned with gold, silver, ivory and peacocks. Peacocks are natives of India and Ceylon. Apes and ivory may have been brought from India or Africa. Gold and silver may have come from these or other quarters. An Indian origin may be inferred from the fact that the Hebrew ḳōph , the Greek kḗbos (κῆβος ) and the English "ape" are akin to the Sanskrit "kapi", which is referred to the root kap , kamp , "to tremble"; but the question of the source of these imports depends upon what is understood by Tarshish and Ophir (which see). Canon Cheyne in Encyclopedia Biblica (s.v. "Peacock") proposes a reading which would give "gold, silver, ivory and precious stones" instead of "gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks." Assuming, however, that animals are here referred to, the word ape should be understood to mean some kind of monkey. The word "ape" is sometimes used for the tail-less apes or anthropoids such as the gorilla, the chimpanzee and the orangutang, as opposed to the tailed kinds, but this distinction is not strictly held to, and the usage seems formerly to have been freer than now.