LUD, LUDIM (m5, plur. ond, avd, Aovd, Λουδιείμ, Lud, Ludim).—In Gn 10” Lud appears as fourth ‘son’ of Shem, in Gn 10 we are told that Mizraim ‘begat’ Ludim. Here two very different races are indicated, a Semitic Lud and an Egyptian Ludim. Both names are, however, used by the prophets in such a way as to prevent any distinction between the words Lud and Ludim. In 1 Ch 117 and 1” the statements of Genesis are simply repeated. In Is 66 Lud is named with Tarshish, Pul (which is
enerally considered to be an error for Put, i.e.
hut), as among the far-off nations. In Jer 46° the Ludim are mentioned with Cush and Phut as auxiliaries of Egypt. In Ezk 27! Lud appears with Persia and Phut as soldiers of Tyre; and in 305 Lud occurs with Cush, Phut, and others as allies of Egypt. ;
The many difficulties that arise from these references are due to two causes—the difficulty of recognizing the people referred to, and doubts as to the integrity of the text. Since the time of Josephus (An¢. I. vi. 4) a prevailing opinion has been that the Semitic Lud denotes the Lydians of Asia Minor ; and would then correspond with their pee ae! ancestor Lydus, mentioned by Herodotus, i. 7. Herodotus (/.c.) also describes their first king Agron as a descendant of Ninus and Belos, which may be taken toimply an Assyrian (or Babylonian?) origin. To support this opinion, the many affinities of Lydian worship with Syrian, and the marked similarity of their art to Assyrian types, have been pressed. Against the Semitic origin of the Lydians is the evidence of the remains of their language embodied in place names and preserved in native personal names. It is not too much to say that in the earliest times of which we have evidence Lydia was not Semitic, but peopled by a race that every- where preceded the Gale and spread wide into Europe. Lydia admitted several successive over- lying strata of population, Greeks and Persians, not to mention Kimmerians and Scythians. These were not Semitic. It is difficult to see in what sense the classical Lydia was ever Semitic. That Josephus meant that country seems certain, not only from his own words, but from the fact that Lydia was known by name to the Jews (1 Mac 88). To the author of Gn 10“ Lud may not, however, have meant Lydia at all, but some more southerly folk. The direction of the geographical distribu- tion of the sons of Shem runs from S.E. to N.W., then apparently W. and no farther S. than Aram. Stress cannot be laid on this till we are sure which way Arphaxad lay from Asshur. But as the genius
of Winckler has compelled us to admit the Syrian land of Musri in passages where Egypt had always been seen before (see Hxpos. Times, vii. p. 405 f.), and as even Cush may be the land Kusu in the same horse-producing Cilician direction, so it may be that cuneiform evidence will yet locate a Lud in some North Syrian land. To the early Greeks Lydia was unknown by that name, they called it Meonia; its later name does not appear till the 7th cent. B.c. What if the founder of the Lydian name were, after all, a Semitie Lydus bringing with him Assyrian culture? He need not have made Lydia Semitic, but he might have left a Semitic Lud behind him. When Gyges, king of Lydia (about B.C. 660), sent an embassy to Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, to seek alliance against the Kimmerians, it is stated that the Lydian tongue was not understood by the king’s interpreters, and that only with difficulty was an interpreter found (G. Smith’s Assurbanipal, p. 79). This seems decisive against Lydian being then a Semitic tongue. Ye are further told that the name Lu-ud-di had not been known before in Assyria (KIB ii. p. 172). Whether this means that no intercourse had ever taken place between the countries is open to question ; oe it only means that the name was fresh. The mere absence of any Assyrian mention of a Semitic Lud may be pressed too far.
On the other hand, the theory of a widespread Semitic nation, Lud, including (according to Knobel) Amalek, the Amorites, the Philistines, the Egyptian Ludim, and the Lydians of Asia Minor, seems out of the question.
If it is difficult as yet to locate a Semiti: Lud, the Egyptian Ludim are quite as difficult to iocate, No satistactory identification from native Egyptian sources has yet been given. The Rutu or Ritu, suggested by some, appear not to be a nation at all ; the word even is now read Romet (see Dillm. on Gn 108). It has been suggested to read Lybians,* which is simply cutting the knot. Movers would identify with the great Berber tribe of the Lewata, inhabiting the shores of the Syrtes; but these people do ποῦ appear in history till the 6th cent. A.D.
According to the direction of the geographical distribution of Mizraim’s offspring, perhaps we should find them W. of Phut, and so somewhere S. or even W. of the Syrtes. This can hardly be separated from the localization of Phut near Egypt.
When we turn to the prophetical passages, we find some marked characteristics. The Ludim are warriors and bowmen. Nowhere in antiquity do we find the Lydians famous as warriors or bow- men. This, however, isnot of much weight against the fact that the Carians and Ionians were mer- cenaries of Egypt from the time of Psammetichus I. (B.C. 663-610). The biblical Ludim may cover these. Winckler has pointed out that in an inscrip- tion of the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, a frag- mentary account of his wars with Amasis, king of Egypt, we have mention of the people Put-Iaman. As nia (Ionians) is the regular Assyrian term for Greeks, we are forced to conclude that Put, the biblical Phut, was, if not exactly Greek in race and language, at least indistinguishable from them for