the Ishmaelites "dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest towards Assyria." And in 1 Sam. xv. 7, we are informed, that Saul "smote the Amalekites, from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt." Shur is that part of Arabia which comes up to the bottom of the Red Sea or Arabian Gulf, and so joins Egypt; as appears from Exod. xv. 22, where Moses is said to have brought Israel from the Red Sea, and led them into the wilderness of Shur. The country, then, from Havilah to Shur appears to be the whole extent of that part of Arabia, which lies between Egypt, on the west, and a certain channel or river, which empties itself into the Persian Gulf, on the east. This channel or river is the western branch of the Euphrates. It is here worthy of remark, that to the people inhabiting these regions, names have been assigned by subsequent writers, as Eratosthenes, Pliny, and others, evidently owing their origin to the name Havilah, or, as it is more properly pronounced, Chavilah; as Chaulothæi, Chaulosii, Chablasii, and Chaselæi.*

In the Havilah of Moses there was gold, and good gold. Diodorus informs us that in Arabia was found natural gold of so lively a colour, and so fixed, that it wanted neither fire nor refining to purify it. And Ezekiel, speaking of Tyre (xxvii, 22, 23) says, "The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haren, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba were thy merchants." The several people or tribes here mentioned, resided in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates and Persian Gulf, and kept up their intercourse with each other by means of these waters; and, among the articles of their merchandise, gold is mentioned,—an article, by the posses*Wells' Hist. Geog., vol. i. p. 6.

Lib. ii. cap. 14, and lib. iii. cap. 3.

sion of which, Havilah is said to have been distinguished. But, as well as by the correspondence of the commodities of the two countries, the identity of the country described in this passage of Ezekiel with that mentioned by Moses, seems to be intimated by his mentioning among the regions or places he enumerates, both a Havilah and an Eden.

In the Havilah of Moses, there were the bdellium and onyx stone. The bdellium here spoken of is by some supposed to be a pearl, and by others a gum; now in this country both pearls and gums are found in abundance. Whatever particular stone may be intended by the onyx stone, there is no doubt that a precious stone of some kind is intended by it; and, by the testimony of a multiplicity of authors, precious stones abound in Arabia. It appears also from the passage already quoted from the prophet Ezekiel, that that part of Arabia in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf abounds with precious stones.

Thus, then, it appears that the country which was washed by the western branch of the Euphrates, corresponds with that which was washed by the Pison of Moses, and this stream, like that, is connected with three others; whence it would appear that this is the Pison.

Of the second of Moses' rivers, the Gihon, he says, "The same is it which compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia," or Cush. This is, of course, a neighbouring stream to the Pison; and, as Moses would naturally class the rivers he describes in the order in which they lay in reference to himself, at the time he wrote his history, calling that the first which lay next to him, that the second which was nearest beyond the first, that the third which lay next to that, or to which that naturally conducted him, and so on to the fourth; and, as Moses, in all probability, wrote his history in Arabia Petræa, west of the Pison, the Gihon

must be situated east of that river. Now that the region washed by the eastern branch of the Euphrates was anciently called Cush, we have abundant proof, both in profane writers, and the Holy Scriptures. In the former, the region is called Chuzestan, Churestan, and Chuz, all which evidently spring from the root Cush; and its inhabitants are called Cosseans and Cissians.* In the latter, (2 Kings xvii. 24,) where Salmaneser is represented as bringing persons to colonize Samaria, whence he had expelled the original inhabitants, it is called Cuthah, which, in the Chaldean dialect, is the same as the Hebrew Cushah, or Cush.

His third river, Hiddekel, he describes as going towards the east of Assyria. Here it may be well to remark, that the river which in the Hebrew text is called Hiddekel, is, by the authors of the version of the LXX, rendered Tigris, a name, which, on the principles of etymology and pronunciation belonging to the nations to whom these rivers were known, can easily be traced to the Hebrew word Hiddekel. And the identity of the country swept by the Tigris with that swept by the Hiddekel is evident. Of the Hiddekel Moses says, "That is it which goeth before Assyria :" for so the word rendered in our translation, "eastward," or "towards the east," may be rendered. In the days of Moses, the word Assyria denoted merely that one province, of which Nineveh was the capital; the Assyrian empire, comprehending the many and great provinces subject to the Assyrian kings, not having yet been formed. Now, writing where he did, Assyria was just over, or beyond the river Hiddekel; and thus the Hiddekel went before it.

The other three rivers being described, the fourth would be known; or its magnitude and proximity to the nations for whom Moses wrote, rendered it suffi

* Wells' Hist. Geography, vol. i. p. 14.

ciently notorious: thus he merely says of this river, "The fourth is Perath;" which, by an adjustment common to their language, the Greeks call Euphrates.

The situation of the four rivers which relate to Eden being ascertained, the locality of Eden itself may be easily determined; for it was situated on the channel which is common to these four rivers :-"a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."

But there are other parts of Scripture which seem to point out this region as that in which the terrestrial paradise was situated. In 2 Kings xix. 12, and Isa. Xxxvii. 12, Sennacherib, intending to terrify Hezekiah, boasts that his father had destroyed, among other nations, the children of Eden, which were in Telassar ; which Telassar is generally understood to be a city of Babylonia, at the bottom of the channel above mentioned, as common to the four rivers; and, consequently, that the Eden here mentioned is the same as is described by Moses. The part of the country of Eden in which Paradise was situated, was the east :-" And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden."

There is mention made of an Eden in the prophecies of Amos, (i. 5,)" I will break, also, the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden : and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the Lord." The place here called Eden, is supposed to be situated in a valley lying between the mountains of Libanus and Anti-Libanus, near to Damascus, the capital of Syria. Its inhabitants believing that the ancient Paradise existed here, pretended to show the spot where our first parents were created, that in which Cain murdered his brother, and that in which the bones of Abel repose. The name has been borne also by a village near Tripoli, in Syria: and here, too, has been placed the residence of our first parents.

There are, also, several towns mentioned in Greek and Latin authors, under the name Adene, or Adana, which is evidently derived from the Hebrew name Eden; but none of these places bear the marks assigned by Moses to the terrestrial Paradise. The fact appears to be this; the term Eden signifies pleasure or delight, and hence a place distinguished by its fertility or beauty, would sometimes be called Eden, either in allusion to the terrestrial paradise, or from a supposition that, from its superior fertility or beauty, it must have been that place.

Eden has always been celebrated for its fertility. Thus it is employed by Isaiah as a simile by which to set forth the moral beauty that will be exhibited on the face of the world, as the result of the reception of the gospel. "For the Lord shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody," Isa. li. 3. And this impression of its fertility owes its existence, not merely to the presumption that God would not choose a barren spot for the residence of our first parents, or that whatever spot he might place them in, he would, in an extraordinary manner, bless with fertility: but to the explicit historical account of its fertility. Moses tells us that, “out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil," Gen. ii. 9.

Equally celebrated has it been as a place of delight. Indeed, before man sinned, his happiness was complete in this garden. Thus, in allusion to it, the heathen poets have formed their Fortunate Islands, the Elysian Fields, the Meadows of Pluto, the Gardens of Adonis, of the Hesperides, of Jupiter and Alcinous. Thus, too,