732
EE
ERI
his own cause — lusts and appetites so blind us.' Cf. Milton, PL X. 748—
• Afl mv will Concurred not to my being, it were but right Aild equal to reduce me to my dust.'
2. As subst. in the sense of a contemporary, one of the same generation ( = L,at. mqituli-i). Gal I" 'And protited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation ' ((ri/i-i/XiKiamjs, KV ' beyond many of mine own age '). In the argt. to Samson Aqonistes, Samson is ' visited by certain Iriends and equals of his tribe.' In Ps 55", how- ever, 'equal' is one of my own rank, as AVm Heb. "?-i;;| fux, a man after my valuation, i.e. esteemed as I am esteemed. So Elj-ot, ii. 417, 'to acquire by tlie executyng of iustice nat only an opinion of tyrannye amonge tlie people, and con- sequently haterede, but also malignitie amonge his equalles and superiours.'
3. As verb— (1) to 'come np to,' 'match,' Job 2817. i» < xhe gold and the crystal cannot equal it ' ; ' The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it ' (t^h) ; and (2) to ' compare,' La 2" ' What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem ? what shall I equal to thee ? ' (^5''ni;f'S nf ).
J. Hastings. ER (ly).- 1. The eldest son of Judah by his Canaanitish wife, the daughter of Shua. He was married to Tamar, who was apparently also of Canaanite origin. For wickedness, the nature of which is not described, ' J" slew him ' (Gn 38'', Nu 26i»). 2. A son of ' Shelah the son of Judah ' (1 Ch 4"). 3. The name of 'Er the son of Jesus ' appears in the genealogy of our Lord (Lk 3^) in the 7th generation before Zerubbabel, and the 15th after David. H. E. Ryle.
ERAN (ITS ' watchful ').— Grandson of Ephraim, Nu 26^ P. Patronymic, Eranites, ib.
ERASTUS CEpoffTot) occurs three times as the name of a companion of St. Paul. 1. From Ac 19*^ we learn that during St. Paul's long stay at Ephesus he sent Timothy and E., two of those that ministered unto him (5i;o tCjv SiaKovowTuv oi>rv), into Macedonia. 2. In Ro 16=^ E. 'the treasurer (olKofSnot) of the city ' is mentioned among those who send their salutations. His office implies that he was a man of some consider- able importance. 3. In 2 Ti 4"° E. is mentioned as having 'remained in Corinth.'
Whether these reff. apply to one, two, or three persons we have no means of conjecturing. It IS, however, not probable that the 'treasurer of the city,' who held an office which implied resid- ence in one locality, should have been, like the others, an itinerant companion of St. Paul.
A. C. Headlam.
ERECH (Tj-iN) was called by the Babylonians and Assyrians Uruk (or Arku), whence Heb. Erech and Arab. Warka. A very ancient city, thought at first to be Edessa or Calirrhoe (Urfah) in the N. W. of Mesopotamia. It is the second in the list of the four towns of Gn lO'" (Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh), comprising Nimrod's kingdom in the land of Shinar (Babylonia). Erech (or Warka) lies half- way between Hillah and Korna, on the left bank of the Euphrates, and W. of the Nile Canal. It is supposed bv Fried. Delitzsch that this river must have flowed nearer to the city at the time of Gil-
fames, as the legend relates that GilgameS and la-b4nl washed tlieir hands in the stream after having killed, in Erech, the divine bull sent out by the goddess Ishtar. Its orig. name was Unu, Unug, or Unuga, translated in the bilingual texts by Svbtu • ' seat ' ' dwelling.'
don,
'Tbepronunciationofthe word wemi, from > Greek tnnacrip- 3n, to have been tobthu.
It was a very important city — the capital, is fact, of the mythical hero-king GUgameJ. The ruins found on its site show the remains of elegant buildings with fluted walls, sometimes decorated with patterns formed witli the circular ends of various coloured cones imbedded in mortar, bricks bearing archaic Accad. and Bab. inscriptions, etc. Remains of canals traverse the mass of hillocks (which in some parts are nearly 00 feet lii^li) and the country around the city, sliowing that it must have been well drained in ancient times. Those portions of the walls of the city wliich can be traced seem to have been in the form of an irregu- lar circle about 40 feet high, and show that its average circumference was about si.x miles. The houses of the people are supposed to have extended beyond the walls.
The antiquitj' of the city is indicated by the non-Semitic (bilingual) version of the creation- story, in which its foundation is attributed to the god Merodach (iiP 2nd ser. vi. 107-114). Another and important proof of its antiquity is given in the number of names it bears in the inscriptions. Be- sides its original appellation of Unug, it was called lUag (or Illab) ((K^/ v. pi. 41. 15), Namerim (ii. 50. 58 ; v. 41. 16), Tir-ana 'the heavenly grove ' (v. 41. 16), Ara-imina ' the seven districts ' (ii. 17), Gipar-imina * ' the seven enclosures' (ib. 18), Ki-na- ana 'tlie heavenly resting-place' (ii. 19) — poetical names implying that the city and its surroundings were regarded by the Babylonians as fertile and beautiful in the extreme, and very difl'erent, natu- rally, from the scene of desolation which now meets the traveller's eyes. The Archevites mentioned in the Bk. of Ezra, 4', were inhabitants of the Bab. Arku or Erech, which was the seat of a celebrated school of learned men. Strabo speaks of the Orcheni (Archevites) as a sect of Chaldiean astro- nomers dwelling near Babylon (xxi. p. 739) ; Ptolemy, as a people of Arabia near the Persian Gulf (v. 19, § 2) ; and Pliny, as an agricultural population, who banked up the waters of the Euphrates and compeUed them to flow into the Tigris (vi. 27, s. 31).