MEHIR
reached the south side of M. (R&P, 1st ser. ii. 35- 7). The town is noticed in the ‘Travels of an Egyptian,’ apparently in connexion with the Jordan (ἐδ. ii. 112); but Max Miiller has shown (Asien τι. Europa, 195) that Jordan is probably an error for Kishon. M. is also mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions. At Armageddon (RV Har-magedon), that is, ‘the fortified city or mountain of M.,’ according to Rey 16", the final conflict between the hosts of good and evil will take place; see ii. 304f. About 44 m. N.W. of Taanach are two ancient sites. One, Yell el-Mutasellim, is at the end of a spur that runs out from the ridge of Carmel into ie plain, and is a conspicuous feature in the land- scape. This is Megiddo. The other, close to it, is Lejjun, the Roman Legio, which took the place of the earlier Can. town, and gave its name, Campus Legionis, to the great plain of Esdraelon, which is called by Jerome ‘the plain of Megiddo.’ Lejjun is identified with Megiddo by Robinson (BRP? ii. 329), Dillm. (on Jos 1231), Moore (Judges, 45, 47), G. A. Smith (HGHL 386 f.), Buhl (GAP 209). Moore (p. 47) thinks Tell el-Mutasellim may have been the citadel of Megiddo. The ruins of Legio cover a wide area on both sides of a perennial stream, which is one of the principal feeders of the Kishon, and sometimes called its head (PEF Mem. ii. 39). This stream is apparently ‘the waters of Megiddo.’ Legio was a centre from which Euse- bius and Jerome measured the distances of other places, and probably a military station. It occupied an important position on the road from Bethshean and Jezreel to the coast, and guarded the northern end of the pass over the ridge of Carmel, which forms the easiest line of communica- tion between the plain of Sharon and that of Esdraelon, Through this pass ran the great road from Egypt to the north, along which invading armies ae marched from the time of Thothmes 1. to that of Napoleon. It was apparently during the passage of the defile that Josiah’s hillmen attacked the army of Necho, hog to obtain an easy victory over soldiers trained on the plains of Egypt. A large ruined khan shows that, even in the Middle Ages, commerce followed the same route. There would seem to be a trace of the name Megiddo in the Arab name of the Kishon, Nahr el-Mukutta’. (See Smith, HGHL 386, 387, whose view, however, is stron ly opposed by Moors, Judges, 158). Conder (PEF i em. li. 90-99) identi- fies Megiddo with ‘Mujedda' in the Jordan Valley near Bethshean. This site has in its favour simi- larity of name, and a doubtful reference in the description of the journey of an Egyptian traveller in the 14th cent. B.c. It is, however, far removed from the Kishon; is a long way from any road by which an army would march from Egypt to Car- chemish and the Euphrates; the flight of Ahaziah would not have been towards Bethshean, whence Jehu had come; and the expression ‘Taanach by the waters of M.’ cannot apply to any site beyond the limits of Esdraelon. (See the criticism of ἃ, A. Smith, p. 387f.). C. W. WILSON.
MEGILLOTH.—See ΤΈΧΤ oF OT.
MEHETABEL, AV Mehetabeel (xin πΌ =x20p ‘God benefits’).—4. The grandfather or ancestor of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, the false prophet, who was hired by Tobiah and Sanballat against Nehemiah (Neh 6"). 2, The wife of Hadar or Hadad, king of Edom (Gn 36%, 1 Ch 1),
MEHIDA (xynm).—The epon Nethinim who ἐκένξεετ with
of a family of erubbabel, Ezr 254 (Maovdd) = Neh 7% (Mee:d4), called in 1 Es 5* Meeda.
MEHIR(vn7).—A Judahite, 1 Ch 4"(LXX Maxeis),
MEHOLATHITE
MELECH 335
MEHOLATHITE (nh2z ; in 1S B omits, 2S B} Maucuisan, Ezr 1055,
ὁ Mwovdabel, A ὁ Moovdaéelrns).—Probably an in- habitant of Abel-meholah, the birthplace of Elisha, which is usuall placed in the Jordan Valley, 10 miles 8. of Bet -shean (G. A. Smith, HGHL p. 581 n.), in accordance with the identi- fication of Eusebius and Jerome (Onom.? 227, 35). Conder (SWP Memoirs, p. 221) identifies it with ‘Ain Helweh in the same neighbourhood ; but Moore (Judges, p. 212) rejects both these con- jectures (cf. Buhl, Geogr. p. 206 n.). Possibly we should look for Abel-meholah or Meholah on the east of Jordan, in which case Barzillai, the father of Adriel, who is described as an inhabitant of this place (1 S 18", 2S 215), is to be identified with the wealthy Gileadite of that name (28 17”). In favour of this view is the close connexion which existed between the house of Saul and the in- habitants of the trans-Jordanic country. J. Ε΄ STENNING.
MEHUJAEL (5xpnp or byvnn [Kéré dyinn]; A Mavj\).—A Cainite, Gn 418 (J), corresponding to Mahalalel of P’s genealogy (Gn 5“). Dillmann remarks that the name may mean ‘destroyed of God,’ or (Jewish-Aramaic) ‘smitten of God’ (so Holzinger), or ‘God gives (to me) life’ (so Budde Se spec 128), who points $xn> or ὍΝ πῷ ; cf.
hilo’s interpretation, ἀπὸ ζωῆς θεοῦ).
Ball (in SBOT) agrees with Hommel (PSBA, March 1893) in holding not only that the two lists of the antediluvian patriarchs are identical, but that the Heb. names are either adaptations or translations of the Babylonian as found in Berosus and cuneiform sources. Ball considers that the form nerane of Gn 5" is more original than either benno or Sxvno [the Kéré bxn> he calls ‘a triumph of absurdity’), as is shown by Berosus’ Μεγάλαρος, a phonetic improvement of Medd\apos=Amel- Aruru, ‘Aruru’s man’ (Hommel), » and > being sometimes confused. See, further, Nestle, Mar- ginalien, 7, and Sayce, Expos. Times, May 1899, Pp. 353. J. A. SELBIE.