418 PRIMITIVE HISTORY OF THE lONIANS. 



To the above must be added the unconnected genealogies of 

 Hebron : — 



Merodach. 

 Khaimnurabi=Heliopolitan princess. 

 Shamshu. 



III.— PALESTINIAN AND SYRIAN CONNECTION. 



Palestine seems to have been from an early period a halting-place 

 of various Onite families, as they passed on their way to Asia Minor 

 and Greece in the west, or to A ssyria, Persia, and India in the east. 

 It contained three well-defined Onite areas. The first of these on 

 the way from Egypt, and perhaps the most important, was that 

 which went by the naine of Shur, having received that designation 

 from the son of Shammai, who was the Ab or father of the houSe of 

 Shur. The Geshurites were of old the inhabitants of that land,'°^ and 

 their name is simply Shur, with a national prefix like that which 

 occurs in Gedor. This region bordered on Gaza, which bore the 

 name lone,^"* the whole coast of the Cherethites lying south-west 

 from it, being also called the coast of the lonians.^"^ To the district 

 indicated belonged Beth Palet, or " the house of flight," an earlier 

 Pola, " the town of the fugitives," the tradition of which Stephanus 

 of Byzantium seems to have confounded with Gaza.-^"® Gaza itself, 

 as named lone, and a place where Dagon was worshipped, miist con- 

 nect intima;tely with the Onam line, and is probably a form of Zazal 

 In the same region of southern Palestine, Moladah, a name derived 

 from Molid, the brother of Ahban and son of Abishur, is found. 

 Shema, near Moladah, and Mareshah, not far off", may have relations 

 with the family of Abishur, while Cabbon, near Beth-Dagon, has an 

 Achban look. The old Jerachmeelite region spoken of in the first 

 book of Samuel, must have bordered upon this Onite region."'^ 



The second Onite area lay to the north of the tribe of Judahj 

 extending through the dominions of Benjamin and Dan, from the 

 Dead Sea to the Mediterranean. It was marked by the Jerach- 



103 1 Sam. xxvii. 8. 



104 Steph. Byzant. 



106 The progress of Maritime Discovery, by J. S. Clarke, London, 1803, Vol. i. p. 94. 



106 Hitzig, die Philistaer, 5 seq. 



107 1 Sam. xxvii. 10 ; xxx. 29. 



