474 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



Meonothai (a name identical with the Arabic Meunim, 

 2 Chron. xxvi. 7). These names are at bottom one with 

 the Epher series, and also with Ephron (fnpi? with the 

 now familiar termination), which is the name of a town 

 and mountain, and in Benjamin of the Hittite noble who 

 gave his name to the district of Machpelah. Again, from 

 IDJ, a species of antelope or wild goat, we have the Arabic 

 race of Zimran, Gen. xxv. 2 ; the kings of Zimri, Jer. xxv. 

 25 ; a Judean name Zimri, i Chron. ii. 6 ; a Benjamite 

 of the same name, i Chron. viii. 36 ; and a Simeonite 

 prince, the head of a clan, Num. xxv. 14 (also i Kings 

 xvi. 9). From Sis, calf, we have Eglon, a king of Moab, 

 and Eglon, a Judean town. There is, it may be observed, 



c/ 



an Arabic tribal name identical with this . Now it 



is generally supposed that animal names of places such as 

 these, to which may be added Aiyalon (pS^N stag-town), 

 Shaalbim (fox- town; compare the Arabic tribe Thalaba), 

 and so forth, are named &quot; a cervorum vitulorum cet. 

 copia &quot; (Gesenius). But such a theory is intrinsically 

 unnatural. It squares very ill with the fact that the 

 local names are constantly found also as tribal names or 

 names of kings and other individuals ; with the association 

 in which we find, for example, side by side, an Amorite 

 town of foxes and another of stags (Judges i. 35) ; and 

 with the continuous line of connection that binds these 

 names with the Arabic phenomena. A good instance is 

 that of localities with a panther name. We have in the 

 tribe of Gad, Nimrah, Beth-Nimrah or Beth-Nimrin, 

 and near it the waters of Nimrim. Now Noldeke, 

 Z.D.M.G. xxix. p. 437, cites four places with similar panther 

 names in the Hauran, and remarks that the numerous 

 names of places from the root IDD probably denote the 

 panther-like spotted or striped look of the ground. This 

 conjecture shows the inadequacy of the usual method of 

 explanation. When we find in Arabia a Namir (Sprenger, 

 Geog. p. 273) in the possession of the Beni Wabish, a 



