ARAMITESS

Assyria about B.C. 1300 {WAl iii. 4, No. 1). About the same time their name occurs in an inscription of Rameses ii. (cf. MQUer, Asien und Europa, 222, 234). Tiglath-pileser i. (c. b.c. 1110) mentions Ararateans (KIB i. 33) as dwelling east of the Euphrates, and in this same region they were later (885-824) conquered by Ashurnazirpal and Shalmaneser ii. Many of them continued to live in the Euphrates valley, where their language spread to such an extent that, in the reign of Sennacherib, Aramaic glosses begin to make their appearance on Babylonian contracts. In Nippur many similar documents from the Persian period have been found. They indicate that the use of Aramaic was spreading among the common people of Babylonia. It probably came into general use here, as the Babylonian Talmud is written in it.

The Aramseans pushed into the West in large num-bers shortly after b.c. 1300. In course of time they occupied Damascus and a part of the country to the south as far as the Hauran, some of them mingling with tribes still farther to the south and becoming the Ammonites, Moabites, and Israelites. A part of the Aramaeans also displaced the Hittites in Hamath. Damascus became the leading Arameean State (cf. Am 1' and Is 7'), but other independent Aramsean kingdoms were Aram-Geshur, and Aiam-Maacah in the Hauran to the north of Bashan; Aram-Zobah, farther north towards Damascus; and Aram-Rehob, near the town of Dan (Nu 132', Jg IS'S), conjecturally identified with Banias (Moore, Com. on Judges, 399).

King David married a daughter of the king of Geshur, and she became the mother of Absalom (2 S 3'), who afterwards fled thither (13'*). Damascus was con-quered by David (8'), who also made Zobab, Rehob, and Maacah tributary (ch. 10). Zobah is mentioned by Ashurbanipal three centuries later as Subiti.

After the death of David, Damascus regained its independence. In the reigns of Baasha and Asa it was an ally now of Israel and now of Judah (1 K 15"). During the century from Ahab to Jehoash of Israd, Damascus and Israel were frequently at war, and Damascus held much of Israel's trans-Jordanic territory. After this the Aramaean kingdom became weaker, but in the reign of Ahaz it made an attempt on Judah (Is 7). It was finally subdued by Tiglath-pileser m. of Assyria in b.c. 732.

The Aramaeans continued to form the basis of population in the region from Aleppo to the Euphrates and beyond. Early in the Christian era this region became Christian, and in that Aramaic dialect called Syriac a large Christian literature exists.

George A. Barton.

ABAUITESS. — A feminine form which occurs in both AV and RV of 1 Ch 7", for the elsewhere frequent term Syrian.

ARAm-GESHUR, ARAM-MAACAH, ARAU-KAHARAHI, ARAM-REHOB, ARAM-ZOBAH. —See Aram.

ARAN.— Son of Dishanthe Horite (Gn 36", 1 Ch 1«), a descendant of Esau. The name denotes ' a wild goat,' and Dishan 'an antelope' or 'gazelle'; while Seir the ancestor is 'the he-goat.'

ARARAT (Gn 8', 2 K 193' [||Isa 37"], Jer 51") is the Hebrew form of the Assyrian Urartu, which on the monuments from the 9th cent, downwards designates a kingdom in the N. of thelater Armenia. Theextension of the name naturally varied with the political limits of this State; but properly it seems to have denoted a small district on the middle Araxes, of which the native name Ayraral is thought to be preserved in the Alarodioi of Herodotus (iii. 94, vii. 79). Jerome describes it as 'a level region of Armenia, through which the Araxes flows, of incredible fertility, at the foot of the Taurus range, which extends thus far.' The Araxes (or Aras), on its way to the Caspian Sea, forms a great elbow to the S. ;

ARBELA

and at the upper part of this, on the right (or S.W.) bank of the river, the lofty snowclad summit of Massis (called by the Persians the 'mountain of Noah') rises to a height of nearly 17,000 ft. above sea-level. This is the traditional landing-place of the ark; and, through a misunderstanding of Gn 8< (' in [one of) the mountains of Ararat '), the name was transferred from the surround-ing district to the two peaks of this mountain. Great Ararat and Little Ararat, — the latter about 7 m. distant and 4000 ft. lower.

Whether this is the site contemplated by the writer in Genesis (P) is not quite certain. 'The Syrian and Moham-medan tradition places itat JebelJudi, a striking mountain considerably S. oi Lake Van, commanding a wide view over the Atesopotamian plain. It is just possible that this might be included among the 'mountains of Ararat' in the wider sense of the term. This seems the view of Josephus (Ant. i. iii. 5, 6), who is unconscious of any discrepancy between ' Armenia ' and the ' Kordytean ' mountain of Berosus. His statement about relics of the ark being shown in his time appeara to be borrowed from Berosiis, and applies to wiatever mountain that writer had in mind — possibly Jebel Jddt I 'The Targums and Peshitta, however, which are in-fiuencedbythis tradition, read XardS (Kurdistan), in verbal agreement with Berosus. The cuneiform Flood-legend puts it much farther S., at the 'mountain of Nisir,' probably in one of the ranges E. of the Tigris and S. of 'the Lesser Zab. This, of course, is quite beyond any imaginable extension of the name Ararat. Assuming, therefore, tnatthe Biblical and Babylonian narratives have a common origin, the landing- place of the ark would seem to have been pushed gradually northward, the natural tendency of such a tradition being to attach itself to the highest mountain known at the time. On this principle the ultimate selection of the imposing Mount Massis would be almost inevitable; and it is probable that this is the view of Gn 8^, although the alternative hypothesis that Jebel JOdi is meant has still some claim to be considered. The suggestion of Noldeke, that Ararat is a late substitution for Kardt^ in the original text of Genesis, has nothing to recommend it. J. Skinner.

ABARTTE (2 S 23^'> RV).— See Habarite, No. 2.

ABATHES, formerly called Mithridates, was king of Cappadocia b.c. 163-130. In b.c. 139 the Romans wrote letters to Arathes and certain other eastern sovereigns in favour of the Jews (1 Mac 15^).

ARAUNAH (2 S 24i8; called in 1 Ch 21«, 2 Ch 3" Oman). — A Jebusite who owned a threshing-floor on Mount Moriah. This spot was indicated by the prophet Gad as the place where an altar should be erected to J", because the plague, which followed David's number-ing of the people, had been stayed. David bought the threshing-floor and oxen for SO shekels of silver. The price paid is given in 1 Ch 21" as 600 shekels of gold — a characteristic deviation from the earlier account.

ABBA is named 'the father of the Anak' in Jos 14f (so read also 21", of. 15"). This means simply that he was the founder of the city which bore his name; that is Kiriath-arba, later Hebron (wh. see), where was a chief seat of the Anakim. J. F. McCuhdy.

ARBATHITE (2 S 23").— 'Analtiveof Beth-arabah,' a town in the wilderness of Judah (Jos 15«- " 182^).

ARBATTA (AV Arbattis), 1 Mac 5».— A district in Palestine. The situation is doubtful. It may be a corruption for Akrabattis — the toparchy of Samaria near 'Akrabeh E. of Shechem.

ARBELA. — The discrepancy between 1 Mac 9 and Jos. Ant. XII. xi. 1, our only authorities, makes un-certain the route of Bacchides in his march on Jerusalem. Josephus makes him pitch his camp at Arbela in Galilee: 1 Mac. brings him 'by the way that leadeth to Gilgal,' to 'Mesaloth which is in Arbela.' His course thence points to JUfUia as Gilgal, about 5 miles N. of Blr ez-Zeit, where the battle was fought with Judas. Uesaloth might then be sought in Meselieh, about 3 miles S.E. of Dothan. But no name resembling Arbela, either of town or district, is found in the neighbourhood; although Eusebius ( Onomasticon) seems to have known an Arbela not far from Lejjun. On the other hand, Arbela in

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