Gi'lion (Heb. Gichon , I'lrT'^, in 1 Kings "inS, a stream, as breaking forth from a fountain ; Sept. in Gen. ii, 13 YtCov v. r. V^div, in 1 Kings i, 33, 38 ViSir, in 2 Chron. xxxii, 30 rtnov, undistinguishable in 2 Chron. xxxiii, 14; Vulg. Gihon"), the name of two wa- ter-courses. Gesenius compares Job xl, 23, and the Arabic jayhama and jayhunu, spoken of several larger Asiatic streams, as the Ganges, Araxes, etc.
1. The second of the four rivers of Eden, said to flow around the land of Cush or Ethiopia (1 Gen. ii, 13). What river is actually denoted here is a matter of great dispute and uncertaint}' ; perhaps the face of the country in question has been so greath' changed since that time (although the present tense is used by Moses in the description) as to efface the distinctive mai'ks given. See Paradise. We may here remark, how- ever, that the usual interpretation, and the one adopt- ed by Gesenius, is that of Josephus (Vtjwv, Ant. i, 1, .3), which identifies the Gihon with the Nile; so also the Sept., which in Jer. ii, 18, for Sihor or the Nile, has ri]on', and in Ecclus. xxiv, 27 puts Frjuv (A. V. " Geon") for the Nile. The Mohammedans likewise reckon the Nile as one of the rivers of Paradise (^Fund- grub, des Orients, i, 304). Others regard the Oxus as meant (Rosenmidler, Alterth. i, 1, p. 184 ; Eitter, Ei'dk. ii, 480), others the Araxes (Keland); others still the Ganges (Ewald, Lsr. Gesch. i, 333). — Winer, i, 428.
The second river of Paradise presents difficulties not less insurmountable than the first, or Pison. Those who maintained that the Pison is the Ganges held also that the Gihon was the Nile. One great objection to this theorj- is, that although in tlie books of the Old Testament frequent allusion is made to this river, it nowhere appears to have been known to the Hebrews by the name Gihon. The idea seems to have origina- ted with the Sept. rendering of "ilPI"'"^ by r?;wj' in Jer. ii, 18; but it is clear, from the manner in which the translators have given the latter clause of the same passage, that they had no conception of the true mean- ing. Among modern writers, Berthcau (quoted b}' Delitzsch, Genesis) and Kalisch (Jienesis) have not hes- itated to support this interpretation, in accordance with the principle they adopt, that the description of the garden of Eden is to be explained according to the most ancient notions of the earth's surface, without reference to the advances made in later times in geo- graphical knowledge. If this hypothesis be adopted, it certainly explains some features of the narrative, but, so far from removing the diflSculty, it introduces another equally great. U has yet to be proved tliat the opinions of the Hebrews on these points were as
GIHOX
862
GIHON"
con trad ictorj' to the now ^vcll-known i-elations of land and water :is the recorded impressions of other nations at a iiiiich Liter period. At present we have nothing hut categorical assertion. Pausanias (ii, 5), indeed, records a legend that the Euphrates, after disappear- ing in a marsh, rises again beyond Ethiopia, and flows through Egypt as the Nile. Arrian {Exp. Alex, vi, 1) relates that Alexander, on finding crocodiles in the In- dus, and Ijeans like those of Eg^-pt on the banks of the Acesines, imagined that he had discovered the sources of the Nile ; but he adds, what those who make use of this passage do not find it convenient to quote, that on receiving more accurate information Alexander aban- doned his theory, and cancelled the letter he had writ- ten to his mother Olj'mpias on the subject. It is but fair to saj' that there was at one time a theory afloat that the Nile rose in a mountain of Lower Mauretania (Pliny, n. N. V, 10).
The etymology of Gihon (H^S, to hurst forth) seems to indicate that it was a swiftlj'-flowing, impetuous stream. According to Golius (^Lex. Arab.), Jichun is the name given to the Oxus, which has, on this ac- count, been assumed by IJosenmiiller, Havtmann, and Michaelis to be the Gihon of Scripture. But the Arax- es, too, is called by the Persians Jichun ar-Eas, and from this circumstance it has been adopted by Keland, Calmet, and colonel Chesnej' as the modern represent- ative of the Gihon. It is clear, therefore, that the question is not to be decided 1)y etymology alone, as the name might be appropriately applied to many riv- ers. That the Gihon should be one of the channels b}' which the united stream of the Tigris and Euphrates falls into the Persian Gulf, was essential to the theory which places the garden of Eden on the Shat el-Arab. Bochart and Huet contended that it was the eastern- most of these channels, while Calvin considered it to be the most westerly. Ilopkinson and Junius, conceiving that Eden was to be found in the region of Auranitis Q = Audanilis, quasi Edenitis), on the Euphrates, were compelled to make the Gihon coincide with the Nahar- sar, the ^larses of Amm. Marc, (xxiii, 6, § 25). That it should be the Orontes (Leclerc), the Ganges (Butt- maun and Ewald), the Kur, or Cyrus, which rises from the side of the Saghanlou mountain, a few miles north- ward of the sources of the Araxes (Link), necessarih' followed from the exigencies of the several theories. It isk and Yerbrugge are in fixvor of the Gyndes of the ancients (Herod, i, 189), now called the Dij^alah, one of the tributaries of the Tigris. Aljraham Peritsol (Ugolino, vol. vii) was of opinion that the garden of Eden was situated in the region of the INIountains of the Moon. Identifying tlie I'ison with the Nile, and the Gihon with a river which his editor, Ilyde, ex- plains to be the Niger, he avoids the diflicult_y which is presented by the fiict that the Hiddekel and P'rath are rivers of Asia, by conceiving it possible that these rivers actually take their rise in the Mountains of the Moon, and then run under ground till they make their app.-arancc in Assyria. Eeiually unsatisfactory is the explanation of Ephraem Sj'rus tliat the four rivers have their source in Paradise, which is situated in a very lofty place, but are swallowed up by the sur- rounding districts, and, after passing underneath the sea, come to light again in diff"erent quarters of the glolic. — Smith, s. v. Eden.