of Cush did of old appertain, shall be shewn, when we CHAP. I. come to speak of the peopling of the world by the three sons of Noah and their posterity: it will be sufficient to our present purpose, to make out that the country adjoining to the easterly mouth of Euphrates, and which by the Greeks and Latins was called Susiana, had formerly the name of Cush, and hath it still at present. All the journals of travellers do then inform us, that Susiana is now called Chuzestan, which carries in it plain footsteps of the original word Cush, or, as it is wrote by some, Chus or Chuz. Benjamin of Navarre says, that the great province of Elam, whereof Susa is the metropolis, and which the Tigris waters, is called so. That province of Elam is Elymais, which extends itself as far as the coast of the Persian Gulf, at the east of the mouth of the Euphrates. The Nubian geographer and some other Arabians call it Churestan: but it is probably an oversight of the copiers, who did not distinguish the letter r from z of the Arabians, which only differ by one point. The inhabitants of the land call it absolutely or plainly Chus, if we will believe Marius Nigery. The same region is called Cuthah in the book of Kings, (2 Kings xvii. 24.) according to the variety of dialects; and it was partly from thence, that. Salmanassar transported a colony into Samaria, to fill the room of its inhabitants and of the ten tribes, which he had turned out and sent into other places. This new colony, which was afterwards known under the name of Samaritans, kept also the name of its origin, and was called the Cutheans. The word Cuthah or Cuth undoubtedly came from the word Cush or Cus, the last letter of which is often changed by the Chaldeans into a t or th, as Dion hath observed. So they said Theor for Sor, Attyria for Assyria. There are yet many other marks of the word Cush found in the same province. We find there the Cosseans, neighbours to the Uxians, according y Mar. Nig. Comm. 5. Geograph. Asiæ. z Dion. Xiphil. Traj. p. 347. ex edit. Sylburg. PART I. to the position of Pliny, Ptolemy, and Arriana. Some have imagined, that those Cosseans had given their name to the province of Chuzestan; but it is more true, that both the name of Chuzestan, and that of the Cosseans, come from the same root, to wit, from Cush, and not one from the other. The name of Cissia and of the Cissians came also from thence; being a little province of Susiana, and used sometimes to denote all the Susians. The poet Æschylus takes also notice of a city of that name situated in the same land; and, what is remarkable, he does distinguish it by its antiquity. He calls also Memnon's mother (that is to say, Aurora) Cissia; of which more when we come to speak of the city Shusan or Susa. It shall only be here observed, that when the Grecians feigned, that Memnon was the son of Aurora, they meant that he came from the East; according to a common expression of the Hebrew tongue, and very familiar to the Prophets, who call the people of the East, sons of the East. Not to add, that many interpreters think, that Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar is by Isaiah called, in the same sense, Lucifer, son of Aurora, or of the morning. 21. Gihon dis the marks given by Moses. Since then the easterly mouth of the Euphrates does The river thus agree to the description given by Moses of the covered by Gihon; since it lies exactly the second in order, according to the method taken by Moses for mentioning the four rivers relating to the Garden of Eden; and since the province it washes or runs along the side of, was formerly called Cush; on these considerations we may rest very well satisfied, that the said easterly channel or mouth of the Euphrates (or, which comes to the same, of the Tigris) is the very Gihon described by Moses. 22. Go we on then to the third river, of which Moses writes Moses's de-thus; And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth before Assyria. Now the Hebrew word scription of the river Hiddekel. a Plin. lib. vi. c. 27. Ptol. lib. vi. c. 3. Tab. 5. Asiæ. Arrian. Exped. Alex. lib. vii. b Eschyl. Pers. et Choeph. 421. et in Strab. lib. xv. p. 728. ex edit. Casaub. Hiddekel is by the Seventy Interpreters rendered the Ti- CHAP. I. gris; and that the river, called by Moses Hiddekel, is in truth no other than that river, which by the Greeks and Latins is commonly called Tigris, will appear from the following considerations. 23. The river the same as the river which is logy of the gris. And first, the name of Hiddekel, which Moses gives this river, that of Diglath, which they give it in the Levant or Hiddekel is East, and that of Tigris, which the Europeans give it, are one and the same, varied by different nations. This may Tigris; surprise those, who are ignorant of the art of etymology, proved first which is very useful, if not absolutely necessary in good from the literature. We shall not stand here to produce authorities. true etymofrom other instances, for the change of the several letters word Tiof one of these words into those of the other. It will be sufficient to our purpose, to observe in short, that taking away the aspiration of the word Hiddekel, the word Dekel remained, which the Syrians disguised, and made Diklat out of it: Josephus and the Chaldæan paraphrasts, he Arabians and the Persians turned it into Diglath; other modern orientals into Degil and Degola; Pliny, or those who informed him, into Diglito; and the Greeks, who gave to all strange words the turn and genius of their own tongue, instead of Diglis called it Tigris; induced probably so to do, by the information they had received of the swiftness of this river, which was aptly denoted by the name Tigris. And this is the more likely, because we meet with other instances of the same nature, as not only will appear by and by in reference to the name of the river Euphrates, but has also been formerly observed (in the first part of my Geography of the New Testament) in reference to the name of the holy city Jerusalem, turned by the Greeks into Hierosolyma. But that the Diglito and Tigris is but one and the same river, is clear from Pliny; only he is mistaken, when he says, that the Tigris is called Diglito at the beginning of its stream, when it runs slowly, but is called Tigris, when it be PART I. comes swifter. For it is called Tigris at the very head, as Strabo assures us; and the names of Tigris and Diglito are in reality but one and the same name, varied according to the diversity of dialects or languages, as has been shewn. The Hidde 24. Secondly, the method observed by Moses in reckoning kel is prov- up the four rivers further proves, that the Hiddekel is no ed to be the other than the Tigris. For, as in respect of the place where Tigris, from the Moses was writing, the Pison was the nearest to him, and method ob- so in natural order was to be named first; and then the served by Moses in Gihon second, as being the channel that presented itself reckoning next: so having passed over this channel or river, and up the four rivers. turning to the left hand, to come back to the place where Moses was writing, we meet with the Tigris in the third place; which therefore it was but natural for Moses to mention third, and which therefore we need not doubt but is the same with the Hiddekel mentioned third by the sacred historian. 25. same is that the gree to the Tigris. Lastly, the mark, whereby Moses describes the situation Lastly, the of the Hiddekel, does plainly confirm, that it is the same proved with the Tigris. For Moses describes its situation thus; from this, That is it which goes before Assyria. The word Assyria mark given may be taken, either properly to denote only that one proby Moses to the Hidde- vince, which was first so called, and whereof Nineveh was kel does a- the capital city; or else in a larger sense, so as to comprehend many great provinces belonging to the kings of Assyria, and which made up the Assyrian empire. The word was not taken in the latter or larger sense, till long after Moses, who therefore could understand by the name of Assyria, only a small province about Nineveh. Now the river Tigris does run along before Assyria so taken, and considered in respect of the place where Moses was writing: insomuch that going from the parts where Moses was, directly to Assyria, there is no coming into it without crossing first the Tigris, as running along before it, or running along on that side of Assyria which lay next to the parts where Moses wrote. Wherefore the peculiar mark, whereby Moses points out the situation of the Hid dekel, thus exactly agreeing to the Tigris, it seems past all CHAP. I. doubt, that the former is the very same river with the latter. It is true, that the clause, wherein the situation of the Hiddekel is described by Moses, is rendered in our Bible-translation otherwise than I have rendered it, namely thus; That is it which goes toward the east of Assyria, or, as it is in the margin of our Bible, eastward to Assyria. And though even in this sense the description may be capable of being somewhat tolerably accommodated to the Tigris, yet the other sense is much to be preferred, as being more agreeable to the plain or primary import of the Hebrew word, and so followed by that great Hebrician, Arias Montanus. And not only so, but the Seventy Interpreters also, and the authors of the Vulgar Latin and Syriac translation, render the Hebrew word, over against or along the side of Assyria, not restraining it to the eastern side. 26. Of the fourth We are now come to the last of the four rivers, which Moses only names, without affixing any mark of distinction on it; and that for these two reasons, partly because river, the the three other being discovered and known, this last could Euphrates. not but be easily known also; partly because its largeness and neighbourhood rendered it sufficiently known in the places and amongst the nations to whom he wrote. On these considerations, Moses only tells us in short, that the fourth river is Perath, or Euphrates. For the Grecians changed Perath into Euphrates, adjusting this word, as well as other strange words, to the genius of their own tongue; and at the same time probably alluding to the pleasantness, or at least fruitfulness, of the adjacent country, washed by the said river, and thought to be rendered so pleasant or fruitful by the waters thereof. Or possibly, not minding any such thing, they made Euphrates out of Perath, as out of Tabor they made Ataby d The Greek word gav signifies to rejoice, or to make fruitful; agreeable to the Latin expression, latum facere. Whence Virgil in his first book of Geor- Quid lætas faciat segetes |