I I
Plldash. Jidluph.
Bethuel
I
Tebah, Gaham, Thahash,
Maacah.
Laban
I
Leah.
Rachel.
Kebekali to Isaac
I
Esau. Jacob.
Nachrein, which, however, seems to lie out of Mesopo- tamia to the east. Others have mentioned Naarda, or Nehardea, a town or district in the neighborhood of the above, celebrated as the site of a college of the Jews (Smith, Diet, of Geogi: s. v. Naarda). — Smith, s. v.
Nali'shon (Jleb. Naclishon' , '^'CT}":, sorcerer ; Sept. and N. T. "Saaaaij)v, but ^aaaau)v, Numb, i, 7; A.V. "Naashon," Exod. vi, 23; "Naason," Matt, i, 4; Luke iii, 32), the son of Aminadab, and prince of the chil- dren of Judah (as he is styled in the genealogy of Judah, 1 Chron. ii, 10) at the time of the tirst numbering in the wilderness (Exod. vi, 23 ; Numb, i, 7, etc.). B.C. 1657. His sister, Elisheba, was wife to Aaron, and his son, Sal- mon, was husband to Rahab after the taking of Jericho. From Elisheba being described as " sister of Naashon," we may infer that he was a person of considerable note and dignity, which his appointment as one of the twelve princes who assisted Moses and Aaron in taking the census, and who were all " renowned of the congre- gation, . . . heads of thousands in Israel," shows him to have been. No less conspicuous for high rank and posi- tion does he appear in Numb, ii, 3 ; vii, 12 ; x, 14, where, in the encampment, in the offerings of the princes, and in the order of march, the first place is assigned to him as captain of the host of Judah. Indeed, on these three last-named occasions he ajtpears as the tirst man in the state next to Moses and Aaron, whereas at the census he comes after the chiefs of the tribes of Reuben and Simeon. Nahshon died in the wilderness, according to Numb, xxvi, 64, 65, but no further particulars of his life are given. In the N. T. he occurs twice, viz. in Matt, i, 4, and Luke iii, 32, in the genealogy of Christ, where his lineage in the preceding and following descents is evidently copied from Ruth iv, 18-20 ; 1 Chron. ii, 10- 12. — Smith, s. v.
Na'hum (Heb. Nachuni', D W3, consolation ; a name likewise found as 0713 in the Phasnician inscriptions, [Gesenius, Monum. Phoen. p. 134, 137] ; and in the form Naovjuoc in a Greek inscription given by Bockh, Corp. laser, iv, 3; Sept. fiaoifi; comp. Luke iii, 25), the seventh of the minor prophets, according to the ar- rangement of both the Hebrew and Greek. (In this and the following article we make use to a considerable ex- tent of that given in Smith's Bict. of the Bible, s. v., with additions from other sources.) Of the author him- self we have no more knowledge than is afforded us by the scanty title of his book, " the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite," which gives no indication what- ever of his date, and leaves his origin obscure. The site of Elkosh, his native place, is disputed, some plac- ing it in Galilee, with Jerome, who was shown the ruins by his guide (^Prcem. in Nuh.') ; so Cyril (ad loc). Capernaum, literally " village of Nahum," is supposed to have derived its name from the prophet. Schwarz
NAHmVI
828
NAHIIM
(Descr. of Pal. p. 188) mentions a Kefar Tanchum, or Xarhum, close on Chinnereth, and two and a half Eng- lish miles north of Tiberias. "They point out tliere the graves of Xahum the prophet, of rahbis Tanchum and Tanchuma, who all repose there, and through these tlie ancient position of the village is easily known." Others (after Assemani, Bill. Orient, i, 525; iii, 352) locate Naluim'.s birtlii)lace in Assyria, where the tomb of the ]»r(tphet is still visited as a sacred spot by Jews from all jiarts. IJenjamin of Tudela (p. 53 Heb. text, cd. Asher) thus briefly alludes to it: "And in the city of Assliur (Mosul) is the synagogue of Obadiah, and tlie synagogue of Jonah the son of Amittai, and the synagogue of Nahum the Elkoshite." See Elkosii. Jlr. Layard, who visited the place, says {Nineveh, i, 197), "It is held in great reverence by Mohammedans and Christians, but especially by Jews, who keep the build- ing—a modern one — in repair. The tomb is a simjile plaster box, covered with green cloth, and standing at the upper end of a large chamber. There are no in- scriptions nor fragments of any antiquity about the place ; and I am not aware in what the tradition origi- natcil, nor how long it has attached to the village of Alkosh." (Jesenius regards both the above locations of Klkosh as very doubtful {Thesaurus:, s. v.). Those who maintain the latter site assume that the prophet's parents were carried into captivity by Tiglath-pileser, and planted, with other exile colonists, in the province of Assyria, the modern Kurdistan, and that the prophet was born at the village of Alkush, on the cast bank of the Tigris, a few miles north of Mosul. (So Eichhorn, Einl. iv, 390 ; Kitter, Erdk. ix, 742 ; and others.) Ewald is of opinion that the prophecy was written there at a time when Nineveh was threatened from without. Against this it may be urged that it does not appear that the exiles were carried into the province of Assyria proper, but into the newly-con(iuercd districts, such as Mesopotamia, Babylonia, or Media. Tlie arguments in favor of an Assyrian locality for the proj)het are sup- ported l)y the occurrence of what are presumed to be Assyrian words: SSH, ii, 8; ""'T)??? 'n?T'P??> i'i> l^'i and the strange form nZwXb^ in ii, 14, which is sup- jjosed to indicate a foreign influence. In addition to this is the internal evidence supplied by the vivid de- scription t)f Nineveh, of whose splendors it is contended Nahum must have been an eye-witness; but Ilitzig justly observes tliat these descriptions display merely a lively imagination, and such knowledge of a renown- ed city as might be possessed by any one in Anterior Asia. Tlie Assyrian warriors were no strangers in Pal- estine, and that there was sufficient intercourse between the two countries is rendered probable by the liistory of tlie prophet Jonah. There is nothing in the propliecy of Naiium to indicate that it was written in the imme- diate neighborhood of Nineveh, and in full view of the scenes which arc depicted, nor is the language that of an exile in an enemy's country. No allusion is made to tlie captivity; while, on the other hand, the imagery is sue!) as would be natural to an inliabitant of Pales- tine (i, 4), to whom the rich pastures of Ikshan, the vineyards of Carmel, and tlie blossoms of Lebanon were emblems of all that was luxuriant and fertile. The lan- guage emjiloyed in i, 15 and ii, 2 is appropriate to one will) wrote for his countrj-men in their native land. In fact, tlie sole origin of the theory that Nahum flourished in Assyria is the name of the village Alkush, which con- tains his supposed tomb, and from its similarity to El- kosh was apparently selected by mediieval tradition as a shrine for pilgrims, with as little prohabiliiy to recom- mend it as exists in the case of Obadiali and Jephtbah, whose burial-places are still shown in the same neigh- borhood. This supposition is more reasonable than an- otlier which has been adopted in order to account for the existence of Nahum's tomb at a place the name of which so closely resembles that of his native town. Alkush, it is suggested, was founded by the IsraeUtish