The renderings of LXX for Pisgah call for some comment. In the second group (those containing "Ashdéth-happisgah) we find bacyd or Φασχά three times, and τὴν λαξευτήν in Dt 4” In the first group (those containing ‘top of Pisgah’) we find Φασγά once (Dt 34), but Nu 21” τοῦ λελαξευμένου,
of the eld by
| and Nu 23", Dt 37 (both B) Λελαξευμένον.
884 PISHON
The root 108 occurs only once in the Massoretic text of OT (Ps 48") in Targ. Jerus. as a verb ‘to divide’ (MT nnsand the ἄπ. Aey. 192 of Gn 15"), and mop denotes ‘a portion.’ The word λαξεύω (which is used of hewing and dressing stone) is the LXX rendering of the MT ‘o> in the command to hew the second tables of stone (Ex 344, Dt 10). In the Onomasticon it is regarded as a translation of Pisgah, and the ‘abscisum’ of Jerome (see the pas- sages given above) seems to indicate a mountain with precipitous sides. Pisgah as seen from the heights of the Moabite plateau would not suggest the idea of a mountain cut off from its fellows, but as seen from the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley its steep sides justify the epithet ‘absciswm,’ which may be taken as an interpretation of λαξευτήν and Pisgah. There is another alternative suggested by the similarity between Soa and 7305, viz. that εἶς LXX translation is due to a confusion of con- sonants. It may further be noted that the different renderings of the LXX are not found in different books, but that in both Numbers and Deut. Pisgah is translated in one place as a proper noun, and in others explained by the Greek verb λαξεύω. A. T. CHAPMAN.
PISHON (jie, Φεισών, Phison).—See EDEN. In
Assyrian pisannu means ‘ water-channel.’
PISIDIA (Πισιδία) was a country in the southern art of Asia Minor, bounded by Lycia on the west, hrygia on the north, and Pamphylia on the south,
while on the east it peed in a vague, indefinite way into the land of the Isaurian or Tracheiotic tribes. Its greatest length, east to west, was about 120 miles, and its eae breadth about 50. On the north and south Pisidia was originally well defined by its relation to the Taurus moun- tains: in this part Taurus is a broad tract of many lofty ridges intersected by valleys, some of large size along the course of considerable rivers or the margin of lakes, others mere glens among the hills). Where the mountains are merged definitely in the great plateau on the north, or sink to the level coast-land on the south, Pisidia ended. Several of those large valleys bore special names, such as Kabalis, Milyas the land of the Milyes or Milyai, the country of the Etenneis (more strictly Hetenneis, transformed in Greek into two separate names attached to two parts of the country, Etenneis and Katenneis), the country of the Orondeis, the country of the Homonades: some- times those districts were called by their special names, but often they were summed up as parts of Pisidia.
In the course of Roman history the name Pisidia was changed from a strictly geographical to a political term. Pisidia was merely a part of the
eat province Galatia in the Ist cent. after Christ. n A.D. 74 the larger half of Pisidia was taken
from the province Galatia and attached to the new double province of Lycia-Pamphylia. It was then reckoned part of Pamphylia; and that name now gradually came to be used as including many cities which previously were purely Pisidian ; while the name Pisidia was more especially applied to the part of that country which was still in the pro- vince Galatia, and Pisidia steadily encroached on PuHRYGIA until in practice the whole of Galatic Phrygia was called Pisidia. Antioch and Apollonia, originally cities of Phrygia, then came to be called cities of Pisidia. Still later, probably under Dio- cletian, the whole of southern Galatia was formed into a province Pisidia, to which were attached western Lycaonia and another slice of Phrygia with the cities of Apamea and Metropolis. Thus we find Iconium called a city of Pisidia in the 4th cent. by Ammianus Marcellinus. About 372 another new province Lycaonia was constituted
PISIDIA
out of parts of the provinces Isauria, Pisidia, and Galatia (eastern Lycaonia and Isauropolis from the first, western Lycaonia and parts of eastern Pisidia from the saat Glavama or Egdaumana from the third); and henceforth the name Pisidia was used to deutte the diminished province with Antioch as capital.
n the time of St. Paul, Pisidia was still used in its old and strict sense to indicate the whole great group of mountain valleys in the Taurus, which nolitically formed part of the province Galatia. Paul traversed Pisidia on his way from Perga to Antioch (Ac 1315), and again on his return journey from Antioch to Perga (Ac 145). On the foriner occasion Pisidia is not named, probably for the reason that Paul and Barnabas were going straight to Antioch and did not preach by the way. On the second occasion ‘they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia’; the two names are here used as political terms, one being a region of the province Galatia (see vol. ii. pp. 87, 90f.), the other the small procuratorial province on the coast.
In Ac 13 the true text is ‘ Pisidian Antioch’ * (not Antioch of Pisidia), that being a way of dis- tinguishing it from the many other Antiochs, abbreviated from the fuller description ‘a Phrygian city towards Pisidia’: the region (of the province) of which Antioch was metropolis is mentioned Ac 13": it was (Galatic) PHRYGIA.