THE HORITES. 515 



of the Greek Olympus, in tlie Ionic dialect OuXu/j~or^ a word for 

 which no derivation can be found, and all the associations of which 

 agree admirably with the meaning of the Hebrew term " tent of the 

 high place." The very word bamah, the high 2'>lc(>ce, survives in the 

 G-reek hema. I shall yet have occasion to show the force of the 

 following Homeric gloss upon the words of Moses. Speaking of the 

 children of Zibeon the sacred writer says, " This was that Anah that 

 found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon, his 

 father." The words of the Greek poet are :* 



" JlaiiiXayovfxiv S' riYtiro Jlv\aifisvEOQ Xacnov Krjp, 

 'EC 'Ev£raiv, 66tv r'ijj.i6v<i)v yevoQ ayporepawv.' 



" The rough heart of Pylaemenes led the Paphlagonian 

 Eneti, whence is the stock of wild mules." 



II. — The Horites have left distinct geographical traces 



IN AND ABOUT PALESTINE, WHICH FIND THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN 

 OTHER LANDS. 



In the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea I might mention the 

 district long known as Syria Sobal, which commemorates the second 

 of the Horite dukes.** Among his sons, Manahath gives name to a 

 place spoken of in the 6th verse of the 8th chapter of first Chroni- 

 cles, the site of which is unknown. It may have been Minois, 

 near Gaza in Philistia, or, as probably, the Mendesian nome of Lower 

 Egypt. As for Ebal, the third son of Shobal, a mountain in Centra] 

 Palestine bears his name ; and the region of Gebalitis in the vicinity 

 of, or included in, Syria Sobal, shows the simple conversion of an 

 initial Ayin, represented falsely in our English version as an unas- 

 pirated letter, into a corresponding Gimel. The root Shepho is so 

 common a one that I hardly dare trust myself to point out its 

 geographical connections. Onam will be seen by any one capable of 

 consulting a Hebrew lexicon to be of the same root as that which 

 occui'S in Ono, a town of Benjamin, and On, the celebrated city of 

 the Sun, in Egypt. Bethana is the house of the god Anah, also 

 called Anammelech or Anah the king. Among the sons of Dishon, 

 I need only select Eshban, a word which Gesenius identifies with 



* Homeri Iliad, ii. 851-2. The same Eneti introduced mules into Spain. They are the Anites 

 descended from the son of Zibeon. 



** Ritter's Comparative Geography of Palestine, Edin., ii. 134. Keil and Delitsch (in Gen. 

 xxxvi.), good men but typical commentators of the unhistorical class, sneer at the idea of a 

 connection between Syria Sobal and Shobal the Horite. The name appears indeed in an 

 apocryphal book, but is no more an apocryphal name than Gebalitis. 



