ARPAD or ARPHAD, a town in Scripture always associated with Hamath, the Epiphania of the Greeks, 2 Kings xviii. 34, &c. Some make it the same as the Arphas noticed in Josephus, as limiting the provinces of Gamalitis, Gaulanitis, Batanæa, and Trachonitis, north-east; (Joseph. Bel. J. iii. c. 2;) but this is improbable. Michaelis and others compare the Raphan or Raphanæa, which Stephen of Byzantium places near Epiphania.

I. ARPHAXAD, son of Shem, and father of Salah; born one year after the deluge; died A. M. 2096, aged 438 years, Gen. xi. 12, &c.

introduced into the royal presence, in consequence | the north side of the river Arnon, which was the of his proposal to meet Goliath, our translation says, southern border of the Moabitish-Ammonitish terri"Saul armed David with his armor, and he put a tory, or of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, Deut. ii. 36; helmet of brass on his head; also he armed him iii. 12; Josh. xii. 3; xiii. 16. In Jerem. xlviii. 19. it with a coat of mail." [This ought, however, to be is called a Moabitish city. Burckhardt found its translated: "Saul clothed David with his garments; ruins on the Arnon, under the name Araayr; see and he put a helmet of brass upon his head; and the extract from Burckhardt in the preceding article. clothed him also with a coat of mail." There is here (2.) Another city, farther north, situated over against no difficulty. David, as a shepherd youth, had been | Rabboth Ammon, (Josh. xiii. 25.) on the brook Gad, accustomed to rove the hills and deserts in his simple i. e, an arm of the Jabbok, (2 Sam. xxiv. 5.) and built dress, with all his limbs at full liberty; and of course by the Gadites, Num. xxxii. 34.—(3.) A third city, in he could not at once feel himself at ease in the gar- the tribe of Judah, 1 Sam. xxx. 28. R. ments and close armor of a warrior. He had never tried them, i. e. he was not accustomed to them, and could move in them neither with ease nor agility. Being, too, the armor of Saul, who was taller than the rest of the people, they might also be too large for David. At any rate, he preferred to lay them aside; and to go against the Philistine in that garb to which alone he had been accustomed, and in which alone he felt himself free, and able to act with energy and dexterity. Can we wonder at his preference? R. ARNON, a river frequently mentioned in Scripture, (Deut. ii. 24, &c.) and which rises in the mountains of Gilead or Moab, and runs by a north-west course into the eastern part of the Dead sea. It is now called Wady Mod-jeb, and divides the province of Belka from that of Kerek, as it formerly divided the kingdom of the Moabites and Amorites, Numb. xxi. 13. [It flows through a deep and wild ravine of the same name, (in the Heb. Numb. xxi. 15; Deut. ii. 24; iii. 9.) and in a narrow bed. Burckhardt describes it as follows: "From the spot where we reached the high banks of the Modjeb, we followed the top of the precipice at the foot of which the river flows, in an eastern direction, for a quarter of an hour; when we reached the ruins of Araayr, the Aroer of the Scriptures, standing on the edge of the precipice. From hence a footpath leads down to the river. The view which the Modjeb presents is very striking. From the bottom, where the river runs through a narrow stripe of verdant level about forty yards across, the steep and barren banks arise to a great height, covered with immense blocks of stone which have rolled down from the upper strata; so that when viewed from above, the valley looks like a deep chasm, formed by some tremendous convulsion of the earth, into which there seems to be no possibility of descending to the bottom. The distance from the edge of one precipice to that of the opposite one, is about two miles in a straight line.

"We descended the northern bank of the Wady by a footpath which winds among the masses of rock, dismounting on account of the steepness of the road. We were about thirty-five minutes in reaching the bottom.-The river, which flows in a rocky bed, was almost dried up; but its bed bears evident marks of its impetuosity during the rainy season, the shattered fragments of large pieces of rock which had been broken from the banks nearest the river, and carried along by the torrent, having been deposited at a considerable height above the present channel of the stream. A few Defle and willow trees grew on its banks.-The principal source of the Modjeb is at a short distance to the north-east of Katrane, a station of the Syrian Hadji or caravans to Mecca." Travels in Syria, p. 372; Gesenius, Comm. on Is. xvi. 2. *R.

ARNONA, a district beyond Jordan, along the river Arnon. See Reland, p. 495.

AROER, the name of various cities. (1.) A city on

II. ARPHAXAD, a king of Media, mentioned Judith i. 1. Calmet supposes him to be the same with Phraortes, the son and successor of Dejoces, king of Media. But in this he differs from the learned Prideaux, who thinks Arphaxad to be Dejoces, and not Phraortes, his successor; for, as he observes, Arphaxad is said to be that king of Media who was the founder of Ecbatane, which all other writers agree to have been Dejoces; and the beginning of the twelfth year of Saosduchinus exactly agrees with the last year of Dejoces, when the battle of Ragau is said to have been fought. Herodotus says that Phraortes first subdued the Persians, and afterwards almost all Asia; but at last, attacking Nineveh, and the Assyrian empire, he was killed, in the twenty-second year of his reign. The book of Judith informs us, that he built Ecbatane, and was defeated in the great plains of Ragau, those probably about the city of Rages, or Rey, in Media, Tobit i. 16; iii. 7; iv. 11.

ARROW, a missile offensive weapon, sharp, slender, barbed, and shot from a bow, 1 Sam. xx. 36. Divination with arrows was a practice formerly much in use, and is not unknown even in modern times. Ezekiel (chap. xxi. 21.) informs us that Nebuchadnezzar, marching against Zedekiah and the king of the Ammonites, when he came to the head of two ways, mingled his arrows in a quiver, to divine from them in which direction he should pursue his march; that he consulted Teraphim, and inspected the livers of beasts, in order to determine his resolution. Most commentators believe that he took several arrows, and on each of them wrote the name of the king, or city, &c. which he designed to attack; as on oneJerusalem; on another-Rabbah; on another— Egypt, &c.; and that these, being put into a quiver, were shaken together, and one of them drawn out; that coming first being considered as declarative of the will of the gods to attack first that city, province, or kingdom, whose name was upon the arrow.

This notion of the manner in which the divination was performed, may be correct; but the following mode of doing it, transcribed from Della Valle, (p. 276.) is worthy of notice:-"I saw at Aleppo a Mahometan, who caused two persons to sit upon the ground, one opposite to the other; and gave them four arrows into their hands, which both of them

tieth year of his reign Nehemiah also obtained leave | About this time, Zerah, king of Ethiopia, (or of Cush, to return, and to rebuild the walls and gates of Jeru- that is, part of Arabia; see Cusн, III.) marched salem, Neh. ii. From this year some chronologers against Asa with a million of foot, and 300 chariots compute Daniel's seventy weeks of years, (Dan. ix. of war, and advanced as far as Mareshah; probably 24.) but Dr. Prideaux, who discourses very copiously in the fifteenth year of Asa's reign. See 2 Chron. and with great learning on this prophecy, maintains xiv. 9. A. M. 3064. Asa advanced to meet him, and that the decree mentioned in it for restoring and encamped in the plain of Zephatha, (or Zephalah,) rebuilding Jerusalem cannot be understood of that near Mareshah. Asa prayed to the Lord, and God granted to Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of Arta- terrified Zerah's army by a panic fear; it began to xerxes; but of that granted to Ezra, by the same fly, and Asa pursued it to Gerah, slaying a great prince, in the seventh year of his reign. From thence number. Asa's army then returned to Jerusalem, to the death of Christ, are exactly four hundred and loaded with booty, (2 Chron. xiv. 15; xv. 1, 2.) and ninety years, to a month; for in the month of Nisan were met by the prophet Azariah, who encouraged, was the decree granted to Ezra; and in the middle warned, and exhorted them. Asa, being thus aniof the same month, Nisan, Christ suffered; just four mated with new courage, destroyed the idols of Juhundred and ninety years afterwards. (Connect. dah, Benjamin, and mount Ephraim; repaired the part 1. b. v.) [Others suppose the Artaxerxes men- altar of burnt-offerings; assembled Judah, and Bentioned in Ezra vii. viii. to have been Xerxes, the jamin, with many from the tribes of Simeon, Ephraim, predecessor of Artaxerxes Longimanus; so Winer and Manasseh; and on the third month, in the fif and others following Josephus. But the Scripture teenth year of his reign, celebrated a solemn festival. name of Xerxes is AHASUERUS; (see this article ;) Of the cattle taken from Zerah, they sacrificed 700 and the authority of Josephus in this respect is very oxen, and 7000 sheep; they renewed the covenant slender; since he makes Xerxes reign 35 years; with the Lord; and declared, that whosoever would whereas we know from other accounts that he was not seek the Lord should be put to death. God gave assassinated in the twenty-first year of his reign.- them peace; and the kingdom of Judah, according This Artaxerxes is said to have received the name to the Chronicles, was quiet till the thirty-fifth year of Longimanus from the unusual length of his arms, of Asa. But there are difficulties concerning this which were so much out of due proportion, that year; and it is thought probable, that we should read when standing erect, he could touch his knees. Oth- the twenty-fifth, instead of the thirty-fifth, since ers say he had one arm or hand longer than the Baasha, who made war on Asa, lived no longer than other. He died ante A. D. 425, after a mild reign of the twenty-sixth year of Asa, 1 Kings xvi. 8. In the 39 years. R. thirty-sixth (rather, says Calmet, the twenty-sixth) ARTEMAS, a disciple who was sent by the apos-year of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, began to fortify tle Paul into Crete, in the room of Titus, while the Ramah, on the frontiers of the two kingdoms of Julatter continued with Paul at Nicopolis, where he dah and Israel, to hinder the Israelites from resorting passed the winter, Tit. iii. 12. We know nothing to the kingdom of Judah, and the temple of the Lord particular either of his life or death. at Jerusalem. Whereupon Asa sent to Benliadad, king of Damascus, all the gold and silver of his palace, and of the temple, to prevail on him to break his alliance with Baasha, and to invade his territories, that Baasha might be obliged to abandon his design at Ramah. Benhadad accepted Asa's presents, and invaded Baasha's country, where he took several cities belonging to Naphtali; Baasha being forced to retire from Ramalı, to defend his dominions nearer home, Asa immediately ordered his people to Ramah, carried off all the materials prepared by Baasha, and employed them in building Geba and Mizpah. At this time, the prophet Hanani came to Asa, and said, (2 Chron. xvi. 7.) "Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not on the Lord thy God, herein thou hast done foolishly; therefore, from henceforth, thou shalt have wars.' Asa, offended at these reproaches, put the prophet in chains, at the same time ordering the execution of several persons in Judah. Toward the latter part of his life, he was afflicted with the gout in his feet, and the disorder, rising upward, killed him. Scripture reprouches him with having recourse rather to physicians than to the Lord. His ashes were buried in the sepulchre which he had provided for himself, in the city of David, after his body had been burned. A. M. 3090, ante A. D. 914.

ARUBOTH, or ARABOTH, a city or country belonging to Judah, (1 Kings iv. 10.) the situation of which is not known.

ARUMAH, otherwise RUMAH, a city near Shechem, (Judges ix. 41.) where Abimelech encamped. ARVAD, properly ARADUS, the name of a Phœnician city upon the island of the same name, not far from the coast, founded, according to Strabo, (xvi. 2. § 13, 14.) by Sidonian deserters, Ezek. xxvii. 8, 11. Their gentile name is ARVADITES, Gen. x. 18; 1 Chron. i. 16. See ARADUS, and ANTARADA. R.

ARZA, governor of Tirzah, in whose house Zinri killed Elah, king of Israel, 1 Kings xvi. 9.

ASA, son and successor of Abijam, king of Judah, (1 Kings xv. 8.) began to reign A. M. 3049, ante A. D. 955; and reigned forty-one years at Jerusalem. Asa expelled those who, from sacrilegious superstition, prostituted themselves in honor of their false gods; purified Jerusalem from the infamous practices attending the worship of idols; and deprived his mother of her office and dignity of queen, because she erected an idol to Astarte: which idol he burnt in the valley of Hinnom. (See KING'S MOTHER.) Scripture, however, reproaches him with not destroying the high places, which he, perhaps, thought it was necessary to tolerate, to avoid the greater evil of idolatry. He carried into the house of the Lord the ASAHEL, son of Zeruiah, and brother of Joab; gold and silver vessels which his father, Abijam, had one of David's thirty heroes, and extremely swift of vowed he would consecrate; and fortified and re-foot; killed by Abner, at the battle of Gibeon, 2 paired several cities, encouraging his people to this Sam. ii. 18, 13. labor while the kingdom was at peace. After this, he levied 300,000 men in Judah, armed with shields and pikes; and 280,000 men in Benjamin, armed with shields and bows, all men of courage and valor. | xxii. 14.

ASAHIAH, one of the persons sent by king Josiah to consult Huldah, the prophetess, concerning the book of the law, found in the temple, 2 Kings

seq.) but it never possessed the whole range of district assigned to it, Judg. i. 31. See CANAAN.

ASHER, a city between Scythopolis and Shechem, and, consequently, remote from the tribe of Asher, Josh. xvii. 7. In the Old Itinerary to Jerusalem, it is placed between Scythopolis and Neapolis, which is the same as Shechem. Eusebius says, it was in Manasseh, 15 miles from Neapolis, towards Scythopolis.

ASAPH, son of Barachias, of the tribe of Levi, father of Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah, and a celebrated musician, in David's time, 1 Chron. xxv. 1, 2. In the distribution of the Levites, which that prince directed for the service of the temple, he appointed Kohath's family to be placed in the middle, about the altar of burnt sacrifices; Merari's family to the left; and Gerson's family to the right. Asaph, who was of Gerson's family, presided over this band; and his descendants had the same ASHES. To repent in sackcloth and ashes, or place and rank. There are twelve Psalms with to lie down among ashes, was an external sign of Asaph's name prefixed, viz. the 50th, and from the self-affliction for sin, or of grief under misfortune. 73d to the 83d; but whether Asaph composed the We find it adopted by Job; (chap. ii. 8.) by many words and the music; or David the words, and Jews when in great fear; (Esth. iv. 3.) and by the Asaph the music; or whether some of Asaph's de-king of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 6. Homer describes old scendants wrote them, and prefixed to them the name Laertes grieving for the absence of his son,-"sleepof that eminent master of the music of the temple, ing in the apartment where the slaves slept, in the or of that division of singers of which Asaph's fam- ashes near the fire." Compare Jer. vi. 26. "Daughily was the head, is not certain. All these psalms, ter of my people,-wallow thyself in ashes." "I am though generally distinguished for their beauty, do but dust and ashes," said Abraham to the Lord; not suit Asaph's time; some were written during (Gen. xviii. 27.) indicating his deep sense of his own the captivity, others in Jehoshaphat's time. "A meanness in comparison with God. God threatens Psalm for Asaph,” might mean a Psalm for Asaph's to shower down dust and ashes on the lands instead family. of rain; (Deut. xxviii. 24.) thereby to make them barren instead of blessing them. (See RAIN.) The Psalmist, in great sorrow, says, poetically, that he had "eaten ashes," Ps. cii. 9. He sat on ashes, and threw them on his head; his food was sprinkled with the ashes wherewith he was himself covered. So Jeremiah (Lam. iii. 16.) introduces Jerusalem, saying, "The Lord hath covered me with ashes." There was a sort of ley and lustral water, made with the ASHES of the heifer, sacrificed on the great day of expiation; these ashes were distributed to the people, and used in purifications, by sprinkling, to such as had touched a dead body, or been present at funerals, Numb. xix. 17.

ASENATH, daughter of Potiphar, priest of Heliopolis, and the wife of Joseph (Gen. xli. 45.) and mother of Ephraim and Manasseh. (See POTIPHAR, ad fin.) [The Seventy, whose authority is worth something in Egyptian names, write 'Aové, which is equivalent to the Egyptian or Coptic As-Neith, i. e. belonging to Neith, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, corresponding to the Minerva of the Greeks. See Greppo, Hieroglyph. Syst. Append. p. 226. Champollion, Pantheon Egyptien, no. 6. R.

ASHAN, (smoke,) a city of Judah, (Josh. xv. 42.) but afterwards apparently yielded to Simeon, Josh. xix. 7. Eusebius says that, in his time, Beth-Ashan was sixteen miles from Jerusalem, west. In 1 Sam. xxx. 30, it is called Chor-ashan, i. e. furnace of

smoke.

ASHDOD, one of the five cities of the Philistines, assigned to the tribe of Judah, but never conquered by them, Josh. xiii. 8; xv. 46, 47; 1 Sam. v. 1; vi. 17, etc. It was called by the Greeks AZOTUS. Here stood the temple of Dagon; and hither the ark was first brought, after the fatal battle at Ebenezer, 1 Samuel v. 1, seq. It sustained many sieges, e. g. by Tartan, the Assyrian general, in the time of Hezekiah; (Is. xx. 1.) afterwards by Psammetichus, king of Egypt, contemporary with Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah. This siege is said by Herodotus (ii. 157.) to have lasted twenty-nine years! It was afterwards taken by the Maccabees, and destroyed by Jonathan; (1 Macc. v. 16; x. 77, seq.) but was again restored by the Roman general Gabinius. (Jos. Ant. xiv. 5. 3.) At the present day, it is a miserable village, still called Esdud. See also the article AzoTUS. R.

ASHDOTH, a city in the tribe of Reuben, called Ashdoth-pisgah, (Josh. xii. 3; xiii. 20.) because it was seated in the plains at the foot of mount Pisgah. The word signifies low places, or ravines, at the foot of a mountain.

ASHER, one of the sons of Jacob and Zilpah, Leah's maid. He had four sons and one daughter, Gen. xlix. 20; Deut. xxxiii. 24. The inheritance of his tribe lay in a very fruitful country, on the seacoast, with Libanus north, Carmel and the tribe of Isaachar south, and Zebulun and Naphtali east. Tyre and Sidon, with the whole of Phoenicia, were assigned as the territory of this tribe, (Josh. xix. 25,

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The ancient Persians had a punishment which consisted in executing certain criminals by stifling them in ashes. (Valerius Maximus, lib. ix. cap. 2.) Thus the wicked Menelaus was despatched, who caused the troubles which had disquieted Judea ; (2 Macc. xiii. 5, 6.) being thrown headlong into a tower, fifty cubits deep, which was filled with ashes to a certain height. The action of the criminal to disengage himself, plunged him still deeper in the whirling ashes; and this agitation was increased by a wheel, which kept them in continual movement, till he was entirely stifled.

ASHIMA, a deity of very uncertain origin, adored by the men of Hamath, who were settled in Samaria, 2 Kings xvii. 30. Some of the rabbins say, that Ashima had the shape of an ape; others that of a lamb, a goat, or a satyr. (Selden, de Diis Syr. Syntagm. ii. cap. 9. et Additiones And. Beyr. ibidem.) They who think this divinity was an ape seem to have had regard to the sound of the word Sima, which has some relation to the Greek word for an ape, Simia: but the Hebrews have another word for an ape, Levit. xvii. 7. Both the ape and the goat were worshipped in Egypt, and in the East. (Diodor. Sicul. lib. i. Basnage, Antiq. Jud. tom. i. p 190.) The name Ashima may very well be compared with the Persian asuman, heaven; in Zend, acmano; so Gesenius, in his Manual Lex. 1832. This, also, according to the magi, is the name of the angel of death, who separates the souls of men from their bodies, and also presides over the 27th day of every solar month in the Persian year; which, therefore, is called by his name. (D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. p. 141.)-It may be further observed, that these peo