June 10, 2019 - Chapter Eighteen
This chapter, in which Ishmael brings Queequeg aboard the Pequod to sign him up for their whaling voyage, is one of the funnier chapters, with the target of humor being Bildad, who does a nice job of butchering Queequeg’s name (calling him first Quohog (presumably quahog) and then Hedgehog). Bildad also calls him Philistine and Hittite, obviously biblical references to enemies of the Israelites. Two of the other references are a bit more obscure. The first is “Belial bondsman” or a slave to Belial, a sort of personification of evil akin to Satan. The second is “Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon.” Here, the reference is to Bel and the Dragon, an apocryphal addendum to the Book of Daniel; it can be read online here.
Finally, wrapping up all this in a bow is the reference to a Reverend Deuteronomy Coleman. This final book of the Torah provides Moses’s final address to the Israelites before dying, in which he exhorts the people to utterly destroy the seven tribes of Canaan who reside in the land to be given to the Israelites. Not to put too fine a point on it, one of these tribes is the Hittites, which perhaps gives a further glimpse into how Queequeg, unless truly a Christian, is seen by the other characters of the novel.
Finally, wrapping up all this in a bow is the reference to a Reverend Deuteronomy Coleman. This final book of the Torah provides Moses’s final address to the Israelites before dying, in which he exhorts the people to utterly destroy the seven tribes of Canaan who reside in the land to be given to the Israelites. Not to put too fine a point on it, one of these tribes is the Hittites, which perhaps gives a further glimpse into how Queequeg, unless truly a Christian, is seen by the other characters of the novel.
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