MONITOR

MONITOR (Heb. כּׁחַ; lit. "strength"; AV "chameleon"; JPS: "land crocodile"), reptile included in the Pentateuch among the creeping things which are prohibited as food and whose dead bodies defile by contact (Lev. 11:30–39). The reference is to the Varanus griseus. It is the largest reptile found in Israel, with a length, including its long tail, of up to 4 ft. (1.20 m.). Feeding on reptiles and rodents, it is frequently found in the southern coastal belt, in the Negev, and in the Arabah. Alone of the reptiles in the country, it hibernates for six months in a burrow in the ground, and it is then that the Bedouin catch it, using it for medicinal purposes and eating its flesh, which the Greeks, who called it a land crocodile, believed granted immunization from poisoned arrows. It is usually hunted while in a torpid state, for when awake it is aggressive, defending itself by biting and lashing out with its powerful tail. The Septuagint and Vulgate identified the biblical ko'aḥ with the chameleon . -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lewysohn, Zool, 223–4, no. 274; J. Feliks, The Animal World of the Bible (1962), 99. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Tzome'aḥ, 241. (Jehuda Feliks)