EAST SEA, EASTERN SEA

EAST SEA, EASTERN SEA.— See Dead Sea.

EASTER (AV of Ac 12<; RV 'the Passover').— The anachronism of AV was inherited from older VSS which avoided, as far as possible, expressions which could not be understood by the people.

EBAL.— 1. Nameof asonof Joktan (1 Ch l»,lnGn 10" Obal), probably representing a place or tribe in Arabia. 2. A son of Shobal sou of Seir (Gn 36", 1 Ch 1").

EBAL. — Now Jebel eah-Shemali, a mountain north of NaUus (Shechem), 1207 ft. above the valley, 3077 ft. above the sea. Ruins of a fortress and of a building called a 'little church' exist on its summit, as well as a Mohammedan shrine said to contain the skull of John the Baptist. The mountain commands an extensive view over almost the whole of Galilee, which includes points from Hermou to Jerusalem and from the sea to the Hauran. On this mountain Joshua built an altar and erected a monument bearing the law of Moses (Jos 8'°); and the curses for breaches of the moral law were here proclaimed to the assembled Israelites on their formally taking possession of the Promised Land (Dt 11" 27'- ", Jos 8^3).

R. A. S. Macalibteb.

EBED.— 1. The father of Gaal (Jg Qm-ss). 2. One of those who returned from Babylon with Ezra (Ezr 8'); called in 1 Es 8^ Obeth.

EBED-IBELEOH.— An Ethiop. eunuch, by whom Jere-miah was released from the pit-prison (Jer 38™- 39"«). It is possible that the name Ebed-melech, which means 'servant of [the] king.' may have been an ofiBcial title.

EBEN-EZER (the stone of help' (LXX 'of the helper']). — 1. The scene of a disastrous battle in which the ark was lost (1 S 4' 5'). 2. The name of the stone erected tocommemorateanegually glorious victory (7'^). The precise situation is uncertain, but if Shen (7"), i.e. Yesliana (according to LXX and Syriac), is the modern ' Ain Semije a little N. of Bethel, the locality is approximately defined. Samuel s explanatory words should be read thus: 'This is a witness that Jahweh hath helped us.' J. Taylor.

EBER. — 1. The eponymous ancestor of the Hebrews (the first letter in both words being the same in the Heb.), the great-grandson of Shem, and 'father' of Peleg and Joktan (Gn 10"- a ll'«). The word 'eber signifies 'the other side,' 'across'; and 'ibri. 'Hebrew,' which is in form a gentile name, denoting the inhabitant of a country or member of a tribe, is usually explained as denoting those who have come from ' iter han-nahOr (see Jos 24'- '), or 'the other side of the River' (the Euphrates), i.e. from Haran (Gn 11"), in Aram-naharaim the home of Abraham and Nahor (Gn 24'- '■ 1°) . According to Sayce, however {Exp. T. xviii. [1907] p. 233). the word is of Bab. origin, and denoted originally the 'traders' who went to and fro across the Euphrates. In the genealogies in Gn 10. 11 the district from which the 'Hebrews' came is transformed into an imaginary eponymous ancestor. Why Eber is not the immediate, but the sixth ancestor of Abraham, and why many other tribes besides the Hebrews are reckoned as his descendants, is perhaps to be explained (KOnig) by the fact that, though the Israelites were in a special sense 'Hebrews,' it was remembered that their ancestors had long made the region 'across' the Euphrates their resting-place, and many other tribes (Peleg, Joktan, etc.) had migrated from it. 'What Eber means in Nu 24" is uncertain: most probably perhaps, the country across the Euphrates (|| with Asshur, i.e. Assyria).

2 A Gadite (1 Ch S'*). 3. 4. Two Benjamites (1 Ch 8" «) 6 Head of a priestly family (Neh 122").

S. R. Drives.

EBEZ — A city of Issachar (Jos 19"). Possibly the luin el-Beidhah, east of Carmel.

ECCLESIASTES

EBIASAPH.— See Abiasaph.

EBONY (hobnlm, Ezk 271') is the black heart-wood of the date-plum, Diospyros ebenum, imported from S. India and Ceylon. It was extensively imported by Phcenicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians tor the manu-facture of valuable vessels and of idols.

E. W. G. Mabterman.

EBBON (Jos 19").— A town in the territory of Asher, elsewhere called Abdon (wh. see, 6), which is probably the correct form. It was a Le'vitical city (Jos 21"'i, 1 Ch 6"). The site has not been identified.

R. A. S. Macalister.

ECBATANA.— See Achmetha.

ECCLESIASTES.— 1. Title and Canonicity .-The title has come to us through Jerome from the LXX, in which it was an attempt to express the Heb. nom de plume ' Koheleth,' i.e. ' one who speaks in an assembly ' (katal) — the assembly being all who give their hearts to the acquisition of wisdom. The book is one of the third group in the Heb. Bible — the Kethubhlm or ' Writings' — which were the latest to receive recognition as canonical Scripture. It appears to have been accepted as Scripture by c. B.c 100. At the synod of Jamnia (c a.d. 100) the canonicity of Ec, the Song of Songs, and Esther was brought up for discussion, and was confirmed.

2. Author and Date.— The book contains the out-pourings of the mind of a rich Jew, at the beginning of the 2nd cent. B.C. We may perhaps gather that he was in a high station of Ufe, for otherwise his very un-orthodox reflexions could hardly have escaped oblivion. He could provide himself with every luxury (2<-'i'). But he had private sorrows and disappointments; 726-28 seems to imply that his life had been saddened by a woman who was unworthy of him. He was ap-parently an old man, because his attempts to find the summum bonum of life in pleasure and in wisdom, which could hardly have been abandoned in a few years, were now bygone memories (l'2-2"). And he lived in or near Jerusalem, for he was an eye-witness of events which occurred at the 'holy place' (8'»). That is all that he reveals about himself. But he paints a lurid picture of the state of his country. The king was 'a child' — much too young for his responsible position; and his courtiers spent their days in drunken revelry (10"); he was capricious in his favouritism (vV.'-'), 'Violent in temper (v.*), and despotic (S**- •). The result was that wickedness usurped the place of justice (3"), and the upper classes crushed the poor with an oppression from which there was no escape (4'); the country groaned under an irresponsible officialism, each official being unable to move a finger in the cause of justice, because he was under the thumb of a higher one. and the highest was a creature of the tyrannous king (5'): and in such a state of social rottenness espionage was rife (lO^"). The only passage which distinctly alludes to contemporary history is 4"-", but no period has been found which suits all the facts. In 8'" an historical allusion is improbable, and 9"-" is too vague to afford any indication of date.

The book, or, more probably, 1-2" only, is written under the guise of Solomon. In 2" (according to the most probable interpretation of the verse) the writer appears to throw off the impersonation. But the language and grammatical peculiarities of the writing make it impossible to ascribe it to Solomon. The Heb. language, which had been pure enough for some time after the return from Babylon, began to decay from the time of Nehemiah. There are signs of the change in Ezr., Neh., and Mai., and it is still more etddent in Chron., Est., and Eccl., the latter ha'ving the most striking Mishnic idioms. It must therefore be later (probably much later) than Esther (c. b.c. 300), but before ben-Sira, who alludes to several passages In it (.;. B.C. 180). It may thus be dated c. b.c. 200. 3. Composition. — One of the most striking features

201