GINATH (nj'j, ViavB AB, TwviiB Luc.).— Father of Tibni, who unsuccessfully laid claim against Omri to the throne of Israel (1 K 16"- ^').
GINNETHOI, AV Ginnetho (•mj?).— A priest among the returned exiles (Neh 12*). The name appears in Neh 12" 10° as Ginnethon (I'w}:). See Genealogy.
GINNETHON See Ginnethoi.
GIRDLE.— See Dress, voL 1. p. 626*.
GIRGASHITE (in Heb. always sing. •c'p;n ' the • lirgashite,' and rightly so rendered in RV ; in LXX and Josephus 6 Vepyeaaioi ; in AV only twice in sing. Gn 10", 1 Ch 1" ; elsewhere plural, ' Girgasliites '). — Very little is known of this people, whose name, though occurring several times in OT in the list of Can. tribes * (Gn lO'" 15=1, Dt 7' [and 20" in Sam. and LXX], Jos 3"'24", 1 Ch l", Neh 9*) affords no indication of their losition, or to what branch of the Can. they jelimged, except in two instances, namely, Gn 10'°, where the G. is given as the name of the fifth son of Canaan, and Jos 24", where the G. would seem to have inhabited the tract on the west of Jordan, the Isr. having been obliged to cross over that river in order to fight the men of Jericho, among whom were the Girgasliites. It has been suggested that a town (now in ruins), near the moutli of the Wady Samakh, called Kersa, might be identified with Gergesa ; the former being pronounced, it is said, nearly the same as the latter by the Bedawin. Gergesa contains, moreover, the same consonants as tne Heb. 'PJ"!? (Girgashi, LXX ol rf/)7e<raroi ; see Gerasenes, p. 160»), found in Gn 15^', Dt 7' etc., and, if the same word, would be the district or cliief town of the G., which, according to Jerome and Eusebius (OS'.'ip. 256, 14, p. 162, 18), was situated on a hill sloping steeply to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. There is, then, a probability that Gir- gashi, Kersa, and Gergesa (wliere our Lord healed the demoniac and allowed the demons to enter into a herd of swine which ran down the steep into the sea) are one and the same.
A fragment of an Assyr. tablet (K. 261, Brit. Mils.) possibly throws a ray of light on this people. In that text the KirkiSati, possibly the Girgashites,t are mentioned more than once, in one case accompanied by the adjective rabbCiti — 'numerous.' These Kirkisati seem to have been one of the nations attacked by an early ruler named
• In the Hex. Girgashite is mentioned only by JE and D. t See the remark upon the resemblance of the pronunciation of Kersa and Gergesa, above.
I
Gazzani (?fatlier of Tidal). According to Origen (in Jo vi. 41), the Girgashites (ol Vepyfuaioi) were sc called from an old town, on the shore of the lake, called Gergesa. This is hardly far enough east to make the Assyr.-Bab. Kirkisati identical with the Girgashites, unless (as is possible) wo suppose them (being a 'numerous' people) to have founded colonies in or near Mesopotamia; or th.at the Bab. ruler led an army all the way to the ' land of the Amoritcs,' as, in fact, many of the kings of Baby- lonia and Assyria are recorded to have done, — indeed, the 14th ch. of Gn not only states that the Bab. kings there mentioned went so far, but that one of their allies was Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, a country situated at a still greater distance. It is noteworthy that the Talmud contains a tradition of the G. appealing to Alexander the Great, during his .sojourn in Palestine, complaining of having been banished from Canaan by the Jews, and asking justice. The existence of the G. at such a late period implies that they were, in early times, an import.ant tribe or nationality, thus agreeing with what is stated in OT, and with the Assyr. reference to the Kirkisati.
I. A. PiNCIIKS.
GIRZITE (Kethibh 'nJD, ^Cerg nun, the Gizrite : B Tbv Veaeipl, A rbv Yeaepd nal rbv Ve^paiov). — Ace. to 1 S 27', David .and his men, while living at the court of Achish king of Gath, ' made a raid upon the Geshurites (which see), and the Girzites (HVni Gizrites), and the Amalekites : for those nations were the inhabitants of the land, which were of old, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.' The LXX (B) is probably correct in read- ing only one name ' Gizrites ' for ' Geshurites and Girzites,' viz. the Canaanite inhabitants of Gezer, a town on the S.W. border of Ephraim (Jos 10^ 16"- '", Jg 1=^), the modem Tell Jezer, lietween Emmaus (' Arnicas, Nicopolis) and Ekron ('Al:ir). The original population, which had not been driven out by the Ephraimites, retained its ind<'p<'iulence till the days of Solunion, when Pharaoli king of Egypt conquered the city, and gave it witli his dai'igliter to Solomon; tlie latter rebuilt it (1 K 9"-"). See Gezer ; find cf. Moore, Judqes, p. 47 f.; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. p. 215 f.
J. F. Stenning.
GISHPA, AV Gispa (s'Sf?). — An overseer of the Nethinini (Neh 11-'), but text probably corrupt (cf. Berth. -Ryssel ad loc. ). See Genealogy.
GITTAIM (D:m).— A town of Benjamin (?), 2 S 4», noticed with Hazor and Ramah, Neh 11". The site is unknown.