The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL VIII. XXIII XXVII 121
We have already noticed (Vol, I, p. 123) the conjecture
that the Guti (which is the softer Babylonian mode of
pronunciation) are mentioned in Gen. XIV. 1.
XXVII. 5. TJt?' Setnr; see note on Deut. III. 9
(Vol. I, p. 146).
18. "I'^s'pn Helbon, a Syrian town, the modern Hall)1\n
in the neighbourhood (North West) of Damaskus(Wetzstein),
is mentioned in one of Nebukadnezzar's inscriptions * (Bel- 426
lino-cylinder I, 23
; comp. I Rawl. H5) under the form mat
Hi-il-bu-nuv, as a region from which the king obtained
kar§,nav "wine", in order to present it to the deity
among various other objects as— "fish" (nu-u-nuv),
"birds" (is-su-ru), "oil" (§a-am-nuv), "honey" (di-i§-pa
comp. Delitzsch in Smith's Chald. Genesis, p. 285), "cream"
(hi-mi-tu HNpn). The passage referred-to runs thus :
meaning "prince", which has been attached to the name ]}yp—Gesenius
Lexic. 8th ed. compares Arabic cLS "spring upon", used of a breeding-
camel—will have to be given up together with other imaginary signi-
fications attached to these words.— Transl.].
* It is by no means certain whether the XuXv^ujv mentioned in
Ptolemaeus V. 15. 17, as situated in the region Xa?.v^u)ViTig, is iden-
tical with this Hal bun "Helbon", as has been generally assumed.
The Barbalissus "on the Euphrates", spoken-of as lying in this district,
points to quite a different region much further to the North or rather
North-East. It is extremely likely that we ought, with Kiepert and
others, to think of Berroea-Haleb. It is not surprising that Berroea
should be specially mentioned along with Chalybon by an author
of "Geography" who ultimately derived his materials from widely
different sources, and it is equally natural that Haleb- Aleppo, which
was subsequently well known to classical writers under its proper
form XdXsTt, should have been blended with Helb6n {XccXvj3c6v), cele-
brated for its wine and bearing a closely similar name. With this
confusion of Halbiin-Chalybon with Haleb-Haleb we might compare
that of Halman - Holw&n with Halman - Haleb among the Assyrians
(Keilinsch. u. Gesch. pp. 229 foil, footnote), and that of Hamath-
Hamath with 'Ahmetha-Ekbatana in Herodotus (Hitzig, Noldeke etc.).