Eder Flock. (1.) A city in the south of Judah, on the border of Idumea (Jos 15:21). (2.) The second of the three sons of Mushi, of the family of Merari, appointed to the Levitical office (Ch1 23:23; Ch1 24:30).
Edom (1.) The name of Esau (q.v.), Gen 25:30, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage [Heb. haadom , haadom , i.e., 'the red pottage, the red pottage']... Therefore was his name called Edom", i.e., Red. (2.) Idumea (Isa 34:5, Isa 34:6; Eze 35:15). "The field of Edom" (Gen 32:3), "the land of Edom" (Gen 36:16), was mountainous (Oba 1:8, Oba 1:9, Oba 1:19, Oba 1:21). It was called the land, or "the mountain of Seir," the rough hills on the east side of the Arabah. It extended from the head of the Gulf of Akabah, the Elanitic gulf, to the foot of the Dead Sea (Kg1 9:26), and contained, among other cities, the rock-hewn Sela (q.v.), generally known by the Greek name Petra (Kg2 14:7). It is a wild and rugged region, traversed by fruitful valleys. Its old capital was Bozrah (Isa 63:1). The early inhabitants of the land were Horites. They were destroyed by the Edomites (Deu 2:12), between whom and the kings of Israel and Judah there was frequent war (Kg2 8:20; Ch2 28:17). At the time of the Exodus they churlishly refused permission to the Israelites to pass through their land (Num 20:14), and ever afterwards maintained an attitude of hostility toward them. They were conquered by David (Sa2 8:14; compare Kg1 9:26), and afterwards by Amaziah (Ch2 25:11, Ch2 25:12). But they regained again their independence, and in later years, during the decline of the Jewish kingdom (Kg2 16:6; R.V. marg., "Edomites"), made war against Israel. They took part with the Chaldeans when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, and afterwards they invaded and held possession of the south of Palestine as far as Hebron. At length, however, Edom fell under the growing Chaldean power (Jer 27:3, Jer 27:6). There are many prophecies concerning Edom (Isa 34:5, Isa 34:6; Jer 49:7; Eze 25:13; Eze 35:1; Joe 3:19; Amo 1:11; Obad.; Mal 1:3, Mal 1:4) which have been remarkably fulfilled. The present desolate condition of that land is a standing testimony to the inspiration of these prophecies. After an existence as a people for above seventeen hundred years, they have utterly disappeared, and their language even is forgotten for ever. In Petra, "where kings kept their court, and where nobles assembled, there no man dwells; it is given by lot to birds, and beasts, and reptiles." The Edomites were Semites, closely related in blood and in language to the Israelites. They dispossessed the Horites of Mount Seir; though it is clear, from Gen. 36, that they afterwards intermarried with the conquered population. Edomite tribes settled also in the south of Judah, like the Kenizzites (Gen 36:11), to whom Caleb and Othniel belonged (Jos 15:17). The southern part of Edom was known as Teman.
Edrei Mighty; strength. (1.) One of the chief towns of the kingdom of Bashan (Jos 12:4, Jos 12:5). Here Og was defeated by the Israelites, and the strength of the Amorites broken (Num 21:33). It subsequently belonged to Manasseh, for a short time apparently, and afterwards became the abode of bandits and outlaws (Jos 13:31). It has been identified with the modern Edr'a , which stands on a rocky promontory on the south-west edge of the Lejah (the Argob of the Hebrews, and Trachonitis of the Greeks). The ruins of Edr'a are the most extensive in the Hauran. They are 3 miles in circumference. A number of the ancient houses still remain; the walls, roofs, and doors being all of stone. The wild region of which Edrei was the capital is thus described in its modern aspect: "Elevated about 20 feet above the plain, it is a labyrinth of clefts and crevasses in the rock, formed by volcanic action; and owing to its impenetrable condition, it has become a refuge for outlaws and turbulent characters, who make it a sort of Cave of Adullam... It is, in fact, an impregnable natural fortress, about 20 miles in length and 15 in breadth" (Porter's Syria, etc.). Beneath this wonderful city there is also a subterranean city, hollowed out probably as a refuge for the population of the upper city in times of danger. (See BASHAN.) (2.) A town of Naphtali (Jos 19:37).
Effectual Call See CALL.
Effectual Prayer Occurs in Authorized Version, Jam 5:16. The Revised Version renders appropriately: "The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working", i.e., "it moves the hand of Him who moves the world."
Egg (Heb. beytsah , "whiteness"). Eggs deserted (Isa 10:14), of a bird (Deu 22:6), an ostrich (Job 39:14), the cockatrice (Isa 59:5). In Luk 11:12, an egg is contrasted with a scorpion, which is said to be very like an egg in its appearance, so much so as to be with difficulty at times distinguished from it. In Job 6:6 ("the white of an egg") the word for egg (hallamuth) occurs nowhere else. It has been translated "purslain" (R.V. marg.), and the whole phrase "purslain-broth", i.e., broth made of that herb, proverbial for its insipidity; and hence an insipid discourse. Job applies this expression to the speech of Eliphaz as being insipid and dull. But the common rendering, "the white of an egg", may be satisfactorily maintained.
Eglah A heifer, one of David's wives, and mother of Ithream (Sa2 3:5; Ch1 3:3). According to a Jewish tradition she was Michal.
Eglaim Two ponds, (Isa 15:8), probably En-eglaim of Eze 47:10.
Eglon The bullock; place of heifers. (1.) Chieftain or king of one of the Moabite tribes (Jdg 3:12). Having entered into an alliance with Ammon and Amalek, he overran the trans-Jordanic region, and then crossing the Jordan, seized on Jericho, the "city of palm trees," which had been by this time rebuilt, but not as a fortress. He made this city his capital, and kept Israel in subjection for eighteen years. The people at length "cried unto the Lord" in their distress, and he "raised them up a deliverer" in Ehud (q.v.), the son of Gera, a Benjamite. (2.) A city in Judah, near Lachish (Jos 15:39). It was destroyed by Joshua (Jos 10:5, Jos 10:6). It has been identified with Tell Nejileh, 6 miles south of Tell Hesy or Ajlan, north-west of Lachish. (See LACHISH.)
Egypt The land of the Nile and the pyramids, the oldest kingdom of which we have any record, holds a place of great significance in Scripture. The Egyptians belonged to the white race, and their original home is still a matter of dispute. Many scholars believe that it was in Southern Arabia, and recent excavations have shown that the valley of the Nile was originally inhabited by a low-class population, perhaps belonging to the Nigritian stock, before the Egyptians of history entered it. The ancient Egyptian language, of which the latest form is Coptic, is distantly connected with the Semitic family of speech. Egypt consists geographically of two halves, the northern being the Delta, and the southern Upper Egypt, between Cairo and the First Cataract. In the Old Testament, Northern or Lower Egypt is called Mazor, "the fortified land" (Isa 19:6; Isa 37:25, where the A.V. mistranslates "defense" and "besieged places"); while Southern or Upper Egypt is Pathros, the Egyptian Pa-to-Res, or "the land of the south" (Isa 11:11). But the whole country is generally mentioned under the dual name of Mizraim, "the two Mazors." The civilization of Egypt goes back to a very remote antiquity. The two kingdoms of the north and south were united by Menes, the founder of the first historical dynasty of kings. The first six dynasties constitute what is known as the Old Empire, which had its capital at Memphis, south of Cairo, called in the Old Testament Moph (Hos 9:6) and Noph. The native name was Mennofer, "the good place." The Pyramids were tombs of the monarchs of the Old Empire, those of Gizeh being erected in the time of the Fourth Dynasty. After the fall of the Old Empire came a period of decline and obscurity. This was followed by the Middle Empire, the most powerful dynasty of which was the Twelfth. The Fayyum was rescued for agriculture by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty; and two obelisks were erected in front of the temple of the sun-god at On or Heliopolis (near Cairo), one of which is still standing. The capital of the Middle Empire was Thebes, in Upper Egypt. The Middle Empire was overthrown by the invasion of the Hyksos, or shepherd princes from Asia, who ruled over Egypt, more especially in the north, for several centuries, and of whom there were three dynasties of kings. They had their capital at Zoan or Tanis (now San), in the north-eastern part of the Delta. It was in the time of the Hyksos that Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph entered Egypt. The Hyksos were finally expelled about 1600 B.C., by the hereditary princes of Thebes, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty, and carried the war into Asia. Canaan and Syria were subdued, as well as Cyprus, and the boundaries of the Egyptian Empire were fixed at the Euphrates. The Soudan, which had been conquered by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, was again annexed to Egypt, and the eldest son of the Pharaoh took the title of "Prince of Cush." One of the later kings of the dynasty, Amenophis IV., or Khu-n-Aten, endeavoured to supplant the ancient state religion of Egypt by a new faith derived from Asia, which was a sort of pantheistic monotheism, the one supreme god being adored under the image of the solar disk. The attempt led to religious and civil war, and the Pharaoh retreated from Thebes to Central Egypt, where he built a new capital, on the site of the present Tell-el-Amarna. The cuneiform tablets that have been found there represent his foreign correspondence (about 1400 B.C.). He surrounded himself with officials and courtiers of Asiatic, and more especially Canaanitish, extraction; but the native party succeeded eventually in overthrowing the government, the capital of Khu-n-Aten was destroyed, and the foreigners were driven out of the country, those that remained being reduced to serfdom. The national triumph was marked by the rise of the Nineteenth Dynasty, in the founder of which, Rameses I., we must see the "new king, who knew not Joseph." His grandson, Rameses II., reigned sixty-seven years (1348-1281 B.C.), and was an indefatigable builder. As Pithom, excavated by Dr. Naville in 1883, was one of the cities he built, he must have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The Pharaoh of the Exodus may have been one of his immediate successors, whose reigns were short. Under them Egypt lost its empire in Asia, and was itself attacked by barbarians from Libya and the north. The Nineteenth Dynasty soon afterwards by civil war; and for a short time a Canaanite, Arisu, ruled over it. Then came the Twentieth Dynasty, the second Pharaoh of which, Rameses III., restored the power of his country. In one of his campaigns he overran the southern part of Palestine, where the Israelites had not yet settled. They must at the time have been still in the wilderness. But it was during the reign of Rameses III. that Egypt finally lost Gaza and the adjoining cities, which were seized by the Pulista, or Philistines. After Rameses III., Egypt fell into decay. Solomon married the daughter of one of the last kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty, which was overthrown by Shishak I., the general of the Libyan mercenaries, who founded the Twenty-second Dynasty (Kg1 11:40; Kg1 14:25, Kg1 14:26). A list of the places he captured in Palestine is engraved on the outside of the south wall of the temple of Karnak. In the time of Hezekiah, Egypt was conquered by Ethiopians from the Soudan, who constituted the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The third of them was Tirhakah (Kg2 19:9). In 674 B.C. it was conquered by the Assyrians, who divided it into twenty satrapies, and Tirhakah was driven back to his ancestral dominions. Fourteen years later it successfully revolted under Psammetichus I. of Sais, the founder of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Among his successors were Necho (Kg2 23:29) and Hophra, or Apries (Jer 37:5, Jer 37:7, Jer 37:11). The dynasty came to an end in 525 B.C., when the country was subjugated by Cambyses. Soon afterwards it was organized into a Persian satrapy. The title of Pharaoh, given to the Egyptian kings, is the Egyptian Per-aa, or "Great House," which may be compared to that of "Sublime Porte." It is found in very early Egyptian texts. The Egyptian religion was a strange mixture of pantheism and animal worship, the gods being adored in the form of animals. While the educated classes resolved their manifold deities into manifestations of one omnipresent and omnipotent divine power, the lower classes regarded the animals as incarnations of the gods. Under the Old Empire, Ptah, the Creator, the god of Memphis, was at the head of the Pantheon; afterwards Amon, the god of Thebes, took his place. Amon, like most of the other gods, was identified with Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis. The Egyptians believed in a resurrection and future life, as well as in a state of rewards and punishments dependent on our conduct in this world. The judge of the dead was Osiris, who had been slain by Set, the representative of evil, and afterwards restored to life. His death was avenged by his son Horus, whom the Egyptians invoked as their "Redeemer." Osiris and Horus, along with Isis, formed a trinity, who were regarded as representing the sun-god under different forms. Even in the time of Abraham, Egypt was a flourishing and settled monarchy. Its oldest capital, within the historic period, was Memphis, the ruins of which may still be seen near the Pyramids and the Sphinx. When the Old Empire of Menes came to an end, the seat of empire was shifted to Thebes, some 300 miles farther up the Nile. A short time after that, the Delta was conquered by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who fixed their capital at Zoan, the Greek Tanis , now San , on the Tanic arm of the Nile. All this occurred before the time of the new king "which knew not Joseph" (Exo 1:8). In later times Egypt was conquered by the Persians (525 B.C.), and by the Greeks under Alexander the Great (332 B.C.), after whom the Ptolemies ruled the country for three centuries. Subsequently it was for a time a province of the Roman Empire; and at last, in A.D. 1517, it fell into the hands of the Turks, of whose empire it still forms nominally a part. Abraham and Sarah went to Egypt in the time of the shepherd kings. The exile of Joseph and the migration of Jacob to "the land of Goshen" occurred about 200 years later. On the death of Solomon, Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Palestine (Kg1 14:25). He left a list of the cities he conquered. A number of remarkable clay tablets, discovered at Tell-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are the most important historical records ever found in connection with the Bible. They most fully confirm the historical statements of the Book of Joshua, and prove the antiquity of civilization in Syria and Palestine. As the clay in different parts of Palestine differs, it has been found possible by the clay alone to decide where the tablets come from when the name of the writer is lost. The inscriptions are cuneiform, and in the Aramaic language, resembling Assyrian. The writers are Phoenicians, Amorites, and Philistines, but in no instance Hittites, though Hittites are mentioned. The tablets consist of official dispatches and letters, dating from 1480 B.C., addressed to the two Pharaohs, Amenophis III. and IV., the last of this dynasty, from the kings and governors of Phoenicia and Palestine. There occur the names of three kings killed by Joshua, Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem, Japhia, king of Lachish (Jos 10:3), and Jabin, king of Hazor (Jos 11:1); also the Hebrews (Abiri) are said to have come from the desert. The principal prophecies of Scripture regarding Egypt are these, Isa. 19; Jer 43:8; Jer 44:30; 46; Ezek. 29-32; and it might be easily shown that they have all been remarkably fulfilled. For example, the singular disappearance of Noph (i.e., Memphis) is a fulfillment of Jer 46:19, Eze 30:13.