side) the river Euphrates, which countries, at one time or another, were in the possession of the Israelites, it will contain CCCCLX M. in length; and by bounding it no further to the eastward, as we will suppose, than with the meridians of Hamath and Damascus, it will contain near one hundred miles in breadth. The extent of it indeed, from Dan to Beersheba, which is often mentioned in Scripture, as the more settled and permanent possession of the Israelites, does not exceed cxx M.; yet, even reduced to this length only, considering the great fruitfulness of the whole, the number of its inhabitants, together with the many cities and villages that belonged to it, the Holy Land was so far from being an inconsiderable spot of ground, as some authors have misrepresented it, that, exclusive of what it was in the reigns of David and Solomon, Ezra iv. 20. and many ages after, it must have been always regarded as one of the most opulent and considerable kingdoms of the east; and that the Israelites, according to the acknowledgment of the king of Tyre, 1 Kings v. 7. were a great people.

CHAP

CHAPTER II.

An Inquiry whether the Nile, or a supposed torrent at Rhinocorura, was the Nahal Mitzraim, or River of Egypt.

Ir has been a point long controverted among the

learned, whether the Nile, or a supposed rivulet at Rhinocorura, was the western boundary of the Holy Land. In order therefore to settle this dispute, which is of no small consequence in the sacred geography, it may be observed in the first place*, that it does not appear, from the ancient geography, either sacred or profane, that Rhinocolura, or any city of note in that situation, was known, till many ages after the time of Joshua. Neither do we learn from Strabo, Mela, Ptolemy, Pliny, or any of the other old geographers or historians, who have described these parts, that any river or torrent, even after Rhinocorura was built, did there empty itself into the sea. Eratosthenes indeed, as he is quoted by Strabo, supposes the lakes of Arabia, made by the overflowing of the Euphrates,

* Rhinocorura or Rhinocolura, as it is differently written, was so called from (piv or pives and xox or eige) the inhabitants having had their noses cut off; as the story is told by Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 1. i.

Euphrates, to empty themselves by some subterraneous passages into the rivers of Rhinocorura and Mount Cassius. But Strabo* himself calls in question the probability of this whole account. For when he comes to speak expressly of these parts †, by enumerating the several remarkable places, both upon the Egyptian and the Syrian side of Rhinocorura, he does not take the least notice of a river; a circumstance too material to have been omitted by so accurate a geographer as Strabo.

Several pilgrims likewise, and travellers, in their way from Egypt to the Holy Land, have travelled along this coast; some of whose journals and memoirs have been made public, particularly those of Mr Sandys. Yet both these and others, as far as I can inform myself, are all silent in this particular; which is so far to be regarded in our favour, that, provided there had been a river in this dry and barren situation, it may well be well be presumed that the thirsty traveller would have recorded it with as much exactness as he had tasted of it with pleasure.

Nay, so far was the whole neighbourhood of Rhinocorura, at the time of its foundation (and we can scarce admit of any alteration since) from affording the least appearance of a running stream, or even of an occasional torrent, that Diodorus Siculus, who has left us the best and most circumstantial account of it, tells us, that it was 'situated

*

Ovx oida dei midavws «gnnır. lib. xvi. p. 510. edit. Casaub. + Idem, p. 522.

situated in a barren country, deprived of all the necessaries of life; that, without the walls, 'there were several salt-pits; and that within, 'the wells yielded only a bitter corrupted water*.' Herodotus confirms this account, by telling us, that in those deserts there was a dreadful want of water, (xagier avudgor 151 devas), to the distance of 'three days journey from Mount Cassius or the 'Sirbonic Lake.' Strabo likewise acquaints us, that the whole country betwixt Gaza and the Sirbonic Lake, was (ve και αμμώδης) barren and sandy.' It is likewise very probable, in so great a distress as this for water, that had there been, during the rainy season, any torrent or occasional stream running by it, the inhabitants would rather have imitated their neighbours the Egyptians, in building themselves cisterns for the reception of this annual supply of good water, than have been reduced to the necessity of digging themselves wells for the obtaining of bad. There appears then to be little reason for fixing so remarkable a boundary as that of the Holy Land, in a wild open desert, which had neither city, river, torrent, or, as far as we know, any remarkable land-mark to distinguish it.

But it may be urged, perhaps, that the Septuagint version is contradictory to this account, which, instead of □y 1, Ņahal Mitzraim, the river of Egypt, Isa. xxvii. 12. (as it is in, and as we render it verbatim from, the Hebrew text),

* Diod. Bibl. p. 55. Strab. p. 522.

has

Herod. Thalia, p. 184. ed. Steph.

has Poxogugos, or Rhinocorura. Now, as Rhinocorura at the time of this version, was a place of great note and traffic, under the jurisdiction of the Egyptian kings, the translators perhaps might fancy it to have been always under the like flourishing condition and dependence; and, as it was then, so they might conclude it to have been, in the time of Joshua, a frontier city of Egypt, and as such, to have constituted the boundary we are disputing. Yet whether this, or some intended. compliment to the Ptolemies, or what reason soever might induce the Lxx to translate Nahal Mitzraim by Rhinocorura in this text, the same surely, had it been just and well grounded, should have engaged them to have preserved the like appellation in others. Whereas, instead of keeping up to one uniform translation of Nalial Mitzraim, (one strong argument why this version might have been made by different persons, and at different times), they sometimes render it, Φαραγξ Αιγύπτε, Qugay? Aiyunty, the gulf of Egypt, Josh. xv. 4. sometimes Ποταμος Αιγυπτε, the river of Egypt, 1 Kings viii. 65. Gen. xv. 18. sometimes Xuppos AYUTY, the torrent of Egypt, 2 Chron, vii. 8. Αιγυπτο, 2 Kings xxiv. 7. Numb. xxxiv. 5. Josh. xv. 47. and in the text before us, Panagugos; hereby perplexing the very nature and quality, as well as the topography of this river, by attributing to it four different appellations.

The like disagreement we may also observe in

Sihorשיהור or שחור שחר their translation of

or Shihor, another name, as it will appear to be,

of