El'asah [some Ela'sah'] (Heb. Ela^ah' , Irr^'p?, whom God made ; Vulg. Elasa), the name of four men (variously Anglicized in the A. V.). See also Ei.easa.
1. (Sept. 'EXtaffa'.) The son of Helez, and father of Sisamai; one of the descendants of Judah, of the family of Hezron (1 Chron. ii, 39, A.V. "Eleasah"). B.C. post 1046.
ELATH
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ELATH
2. (Sept. 'EXeatra v. r. 'E\a<Ta, A. V. "Eleasah.") A son of Rai)ha or Repliarah, and father of Azel ; de- scendant of king Saul through Jonathan and Merib- baal or Mephibosheth (1 Chron. viii,37 ; ix, -13). B.C. considerably ante 588.
3. (Sept. 'EXeaadp v. r. 'EXtaadv, A.V. "Elasah.") The son of Shaphan ; one of the two men who were sent on a mission by king Zedekiah to Nebuchadnez- zar at ISabylon after the first deportation from Jerusa- lem, and who at the same time took cliarge of the let- ter of Jeremiah the propliet to the captives in Babylon (Jer. xxix, .-5)." B.C. 594.
4. (Sept. 'HXrtffrt, A. V. "Elasah.") One of the Bene-Pashur, a priest, who renounced the Gentile wife whom he had married after the return from Babylon (Ezra X, 22). B.a458.
E'lath (Heb. Eylath', f^'b'^X, grove, perhaps of TEREBiXTH-trees ; occurs in this form Dcut. ii, 8 ; 2 Kings xiv, 22; xvi, G; also in the plur. form rii?"iX, "Ei.oTii" [q. v.], 1 Kings ix, 26; 2 Chron. viii, 17; xxvi, 2; "Elatli," 2 Kings xvi, G; in the Sept. Ai'- X«3 and AlXoiv ; in Joseph. \_Ant. viii, G, 4] AlXai^li ; in Jerome, Ailafh [who says tliat in his day it was called Allah, to which its appellation in Arabic writers corre- sponds] ; \>y the Greeks and Romans, Elana or jElana, 'EXdi'ci [Ptol. V, 17, [Ai'Xai/a [Strabo, xvi, 7G8 ; comp. Pliny, v, 12 ; vi, 32] ; in Arabic authors AHaJi), a cit)^ of Idumaja, having a port on the eastern arm or gulf of the Red Sea, which tlience received the name of Sinus Elaniticus (Gulf of Akabah). According to Eusebius {Onomasf. s. v. 'HXdB), it was ten miles east from Petra. It must have been situated at the extremity of the val- ley of El-Ghor, whicli runs at the bottom of two par- allel ranges of hills, north and south, through Arabia Petrrea, from the Dead Sea to the northern parts of the Elanitic Gulf; but on which side of the valley it lay has been matter of dispute (see M'Culloch's Geoff. Diet. s. V. Akabah). In the geography of Arabia it forms the extreme northern limit of the province of the Hijoz (_E1-Makrizi, Khitat ; and Marasid, s. v. ; comp. Aradia), and is connected with some points of the history of the country-. According to several native ■writers the district of Ailah was in verj' ancient times peopled by the Sameyda', said to be a tribe of the Amalekites (the first Amalek). The town itself, how- ever, is stated to have received its name from Ej'- leh, daughter of Midian (El-Makrizi's Khitat, s. v. ; Caussin's Essai sur VHistoire des Arabes, i, 2.5). The Amalekites, if we may credit the Avritings of Arabic historians, passed in the earliest times from the neigh- borhood of the Persian Gulf through the peninsula (spreading over the greater part of it), and thence finally passed into Arabia Petrasa. Future research- es may trace in these fragments of primeval tradition the origin of the Phcenicians. Herodotus seems to strengthen such a supposition when he says that the latter jicople came from the Er^'thrffian Sea. Were the Plioenicians a mixed Ci.sliite pcttlement from the Persian Gulf, wlio carried Mith them the known mari- time cliaracteristics of the peoples of that stock, devel- oped in tlie great commerce of Tyre, and in that of the Persian Gulf, and, as a link between their extreme eastern and western settlements, in the fleets that sail- ed from Ezion-geber and Elath, and from the south- ern ports of the Yemen? See Arabia; Capiitou; MiZRAni. It should be oV>served, Iiowcver, tliat Tyr- ian sailors manned tlie fleets of Solomon and of Je- hoshaphat (see Jour. Sac. Lit. Oct. 1851, p. 15.'!, n.). — Smith, s. v.
The first time that Elath is mentioned in Scripture is in Deut. ii, 8, in speaking of the journey of the Isra- elites towards tlie Promised Land: "When we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath, and from Ezion-geber." These two places are' mentioned together again in 1 Kings ix, 2G (comp. 2 Chron. viii.