Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
(a shout), one of the descendants of Judah. (1 Chronicles 4:20) (B.C. 1300.)
Riphath
(spoken), the second son of Gomer. (Genesis 10:3) The name may be identified with the Rhipaean
mountains, i.e. the Carpathian range in the northeast of Dacia.
Rithmah
(heath), a march-station in the wilderness, (Numbers 33:18,19) Probably northeast of Hazeroth.
Riusah
(a ruin), a march-station in the wilderness. (Numbers 33:21,22)
River
In the sense in which we employ the word viz. for a perennial stream of considerable size, a
river is a much rarer object in the East than in the West. With the exception of the Jordan and the
Litany, the streams of the holy land are either entirely dried up in the summer months converted
into hot lanes of glaring stones, or else reduced to very small streamlets, deeply sunk in a narrow
bed, and concealed from view by a dense growth of shrubs. The perennial river is called nahar by
the Hebrews. With the definite article, “the river,” it signifies invariably the Euphrates. (Genesis
31:21; Exodus 23:31; Numbers 24:6; 2 Samuel 10:16) etc. It is never applied to the fleeting fugitive
torrents of Palestine. The term for these is nachal, for which our translators have used promiscuously,
and sometimes almost alternately, “valley” “brook” and “river.” No one of these words expresses
the thing intended; but the term “brook” is peculiarly unhappy. Many of the wadys of Palestine are
deep, abrupt chasms or rents in the solid rock of-the hills, and have a savage, gloomy aspect, far
removed from that of an English brook. Unfortunately our language does not contain any single
word which has both the meanings of the Hebrew nachal and its Arabic equivalent wady which
can be used at once for a dry valley and for the stream which occasionally flows through it.
River Of Egypt
•The
Nile. (Genesis 15:18) [Nile]
•A desert stream on the border of Egypt, still occasionally flowing in the valley called
Wadi-l-’Areesh . The centre of the valley is occupied by the bed of this torrent, which only flows
after rains, as is usual in the desert valleys. This stream is first mentioned as the point where the
southern border of the promised land touched the Mediterranean, which formed its western border.
(Numbers 34:3-6) In the latter history we find Solomon’s kingdom extending from the “entering
in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt,” (1 Kings 8:65) and Egypt limited in the same manner where
the loss of the eastern provinces is mentioned. (2 Kings 24:7)
Rizpah
concubine to King Saul, and mother of his two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth. (B.C. 1080.)
The tragic story of the love and endurance with which she watched over the bodies of her two sons,
who were killed by the Gibeonites, (2 Samuel 21:8-11) has made Rizpah one of the most familiar
objects in the whole Bible.
Road
This word occurs but once in the Authorized Version of the Bible, viz. in (1 Samuel 37:10)
where it is used in the sense of “raid” or “inroad.” Where a travelled road is meant “path” or “way”
is used, since the eastern roads are more like our paths.
Robbery
Robbery has ever been one of the principal employments of the nomad tribes of the East. From
the time of Ishmael to the present day the Bedouin has been a “wild man,” and a robber by trade.
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William Smith