frim reason that ' the living know that they shall ie ; but the dead know not anything.' There is no fundamental inconsistency ; both life and death were so evil, that there was little to choose between them, and now one, now the other, might according to his mood be esteemed the worse. It would be different if we could assume, as some do, that he reached a higher point of view. Some of tlie passages already discussed under the head of the integrity of the Book might be so interpreted. But it seems quite decisive against this that he ends his work with the words, 'Vanity of vanities, saith K., aU is vanity.' Another passage which has been variously interpreted, is 3" ' Also He hath set the world [or eternity] in their heart.' The word tr ' world ' is D^iiv, and it is found in this sense in later Heb., but nowhere else in OT. It is true that this pleads for the sense ' eternity ' adopted by Delitzsch, Wright, and others. And this would point to belief in a future life in the higher sense. Man has the lon^ng for immortality placed in his heart by God. But the context speaks rather for the other rendering. God has a plan for the course of history, and has given men their labour in which they toil. He has set the world in their heart ; in other words. He has imjjlanted in men the instinct which causes them to busy themselves with the things of the world.
8. Canonicity of the Book.— It does not fall within the province of this article to discuss whether Ec is or is not rightly included in the Canon. But the question of its canonicity is of con- siderable historical interest. It is well known that in the 2nd cent. A.D. there was dispute about it in the Jewish schools. The evidence may he con- veniently seen in Wildeboer's Origin of Can. ofOT. The question which is disputed by scholars is whether it was regarded as canonical in the 1st cent. B.C., and whether the later discussions con- cerned the question of its right to retain the position it had already attained, or wliether it was first admitted into tne Canon in consequence of these discussions. The question hardly admits of examination in our space, but the evidence seems to us to favour the latter view. The reader may consult the art. Old Testament Canon, and the works of Ilyle, Buhl, and Wildeboer, especially the Uat.
LrrERATruE.— The Comm. of Ewald, Hitzig, Oinsburg, OreeU, Delitzsch. Tyler, Nowack, Plumptre, 0. H. H. Wriuht. Th« JjUroducliviit to UT by Kueaen, Driver, Cornill, Wildeboer: A. B. Davidson in Book by Book ; W. T. Davison, H'w. Lit. o) OT ; Cheyne, Job ami Sol. ; Uenan, L'eccUnattt trad, de thib. etc. ; Bickell, Der Prediger iiber d. Wert d. Daannt (1884), and Kohdeth Untersuch. tibiT d. Wert d. Dateim (1886) ; Dillon, Sceptics of OT ; O. Taylor, Dirge of Eoh. in Ec. 12 ; Salmond, Clirint. Doct. of Immfirlatitu, 105 fl., 207 9. ; and the literatim in Strong, Stttdent't Comm. pp. 31-38. J^ S, PkaKB.
ECCLESIASTICUS.— See Sirach. ECLIPSE.— See Astronomy and Astroloqy.
ED. — In the Hebrew (and also in the Greek) text of Jos 22*" the name given by the two and a half tribes to the altar erected by them on the east bank * of the Jordan has dropped out. Our English tran.slators have tilled the gap by inserting Ed aa the name of the altar in question. For this they have the authority of a few MSS (see de Rossi, Varies Lectiones Vet. Test., in lot ).
The Syriac (Peshitta) reads Nnnnin Knmo 'altar of witness.' The suggestion of Dillmann in his commentary. Die, Bitcher Num. Deut. u. Josua (1886), that the original text had 1H^3 Gal'ed (aa Gn 31", EV Galeed), ' Mound of witness,' has been very favourably received ( Oettli, Kautzsch, Bennett. See footnote). This name was probably dropped by some later copyist or editor wlio detected therein a possible inconsistency with the earlier narrative in Gn 31. The MT in its present form can only mean that the name of the altar was the whole sentence : It -is -a- witness -between -us -that -J"- is- God 1 A. R. S. Kennedy.
EDDINUS ('ESSfixoCt B, '^SBivovi A), one of the 'holy singers' at Josiahs passover, 1 Es 1". In the parallel passage 2 Ch 35'° the corresponding name is Jeduthun, which is read also, contrary to MS authority, by AV in 1 Es. The text of the latter is probably corrupt. EiSeivoSi may have arisen from one or other of the numerous Gr. equivalents (perhaps 'ESeiSow) of the name Jedu- thun, but a more difficult question is the sub- stitution in the same verse of Zacharias (wh. see) for Heman. J. A. Selbie.
EDEN ipv)- — A Levite in the time of Hezekiah
(2 Ch 29'= 31").
EDEN (ni;)-— !• 'The children of E. which are (not were as in EV) in Telassar' are enumerated in 2 K 19" ( = Is 37") amongst the peoples con- quered by Sennacherib's predecessors. Telassar, if Schrader is right in identifying it with Til- Ahirri of the inscriptions, lay on the east of the Tigris, and must have been the district to which the conquered had been deported, in accordance with the custom introduced by Tiglath-pileser Ul. From their being mentioned along with Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, we naturally seek for the original home of the Bgn6-Eden in Mesopotamia. They are doubtless the Bit- .i din i of the inscrip- tions, an Aramsean principality in the far west of Mesopotamia, some 200 miles N.N.E. of Damascus, which we know to have offered a stubborn resistance to Assur-na?ir-pal, and to have been conquered by Shalmaneser II., B.C. 856 (see Assyria, pp. 183^ 184''). In Ezk 27*' Eden is mentioned amongst the traders with Tyr» The name here also occurs in connexion with Haran, and is therefore probably Bit- Adini, although the