WIND, Ventus. This is often called Spiritus, and in some Passages of Scripture Opinions are divided, whether it signifies the Wind, or the Holy Spirit. For example; Gen. i. 2.Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas. Some understand this of the Holy Ghost, but others of a violent Wind. And Isaiah xl. 7. Exsiccatum est fœnum, quia Spiritus Domini sufflavit in eo. But commonly the Tenor of the Discourse will easily distinguish, whether Spiritus stands for the Holy Ghost, or the Wind, or the Soul by which we are animated.
The Hebrews, as well as we, acknowledge four principal Winds.1 The East Wind, in Hebrew, Kadim; the North Wind, Tzaphon; the South Wind, Darom, and the West Wind, or from the Mediterranean Sea, in Hebrew, Rouah-Hajam.
St. Jerome often translates2 the Wind Kadim, which is the East-wind, as we have said, by Ventus oriens, a burning Wind. The South-wind is extremely scorching in Egypt, as well as the East-wind.
The North-wind was cold, as appears from Ecclus. xliii. 22. Frigidus ventus aquilo flavit, & gelavit crystallus. Solomon says, in his Proverbs,3 that the same Wind disperses the Clouds and the Rain; but other Interpreters translate it, It produces Rain. The Wind Typhonicus, mentioned Acts xxvii. 14.by St. Luke in the Acts, is that which blows between the East and North. Euroaquilo, or Euroclidon, a Squal, is a very dangerous Wind, of the Nature of a Whirl -wind, which falls on a sudden upon Ships, makes them tack about, and sometimes causes them to founder. See Pliny, l. 2. c. 48.
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