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370
OX
withdraw from his accomplices. Abendana's note is, ' Behold On is not mentioned again, for he was sepa- rated from their company after ]\Ioses spake with them. And our rabbins of blessed memory said that his wife saved him.' Josephus {Ant. iv, 2, 2) omits the name of On, bnt retains that of his father in the form ^aXctovc, thus apparently identifying Pelcth with I'hallu, the son of Keuben" (Smith).
2. An important city in Egypt. In the following account we follow chiefly the articles in Kitto and Smith,
Name.— This in the Heb. is the same as the above, "ix, Gen. xli, 50, or in the condensed form "iX, Gen. xli, 45, 50; xlvi, 20 (Sept. 'H\(oi;7ro/\ic ; Vulg. Heliopolis), which is doubtless of Coptic etymology. But in Ezek. XXX, 17, it is Hebraized •'iN, A'ven (q.v.), i.e. wicked- ness (Sept. and Vulg. as before).
The same city is also mentioned in the Bible as Beth-shkmesh, d^d n-^a (.Jer. xliii, 13), corre- sponding to the ancient Egyptian sacred name HA-RA, "the abode of the sun;" and perhaps it is likewise spoken of as ir-iia-hekes, D"1fjn "i"'^', or D"}nn — , the second part being, in this case, either the Egyptian sacred name, or else the Hebrew 0"in, but we prefer to read '• a city of destruction." The two names were known to the translator or translators of Exodus in the Sept., where On is explained to be Heliopolis {'Qf ») iariv 'HXiovTToXiQ, i, 11); but in Jeremiah this version seems to treat Beth-shemesh as the name of a temple {tovq arvXovQ ' RXwviroXiiJiQ, rovg iv "Qv, xliii, 13, Sept. 1, 13). The Coptic version gives On as the equiv- alent of the names in the Sept., bnt whether as an Egyptian word or such a word Hebraized can scarcely be determined. The latter is perhaps more probable, as the letter we represent by A is not commonly changed into the Coptic O, unless indeed one hieroglyphic form of the name should be read ANU, in which case the last vowel might have been transposed, and the first incorporated with it. Brugsch {Geogr. Inschr. i, 254) supposes AN and ON to be the same, " as the Egyptian A often had a sound intermediate between a and o." But this does not admit of the change of the a vowel to the long vowel o, from which it was as distinct as from the other long vowel i, respectively like X and ", 1 and '^.
The ancient Egyptian common name is. written an, or AN-T, and perhaps anu; bnt the essential part of the word is an, and probably no more was pronounced. There were two towns called an : Heliopolis, dis- tinguished as the northern, an - mehit, and Hermon- this. in Upper Egypt, as the southern, an-res (Brugsch, Geofjr. Inschr. i, 254, 255, Nos. 1217 a, b, 1218, 870, 1225). As to the meaning, we can say nothing certain. Cyril, who, as bishop of Alexandria, should be listened to on such a question, says that On signified the sun {"Qv Si ian Knr avTovg 6 i'lXioc, ad llos. p. 145), and the Coptic Ouoini (Mcmphitic), OuHn, Oubein (Sahidic), "light," has therefore been compared (see La Croze, Lex. p. 71, 189), but the hieroglyphic form is uben, " shining," which has no connection with an.
Scriptural Notices. — The first mention of this place in the Bible is in the history of .Joseph, to whom we read Pharaoh gave " to wife Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On" (Gen. xli, 45, comp. ver. 50; and xlvi, 20). Joseph was possibly governor of Egyjit under a king of the fifteenth dynasty, of which Memphis was, at least for a time, the capital. In this case he would douV)tless have lived for jiart nf ilie year at Mem- phis, and therefore near to Heliopolis. The name of Asenath's father was appropriate to a Ileliopolite, and especially to a priest of that place (though according to some he may have been a prince), for it means '• Belong- ing to Ra," or " the sun." The name of Joseph's mas- ter Potiphar is the same, but with a slight difference in
the Hebrew orthography. According to the Sept. On was one of the cities built for Pharaoh by the oppressed Israelites, for it mentions three " strong cities" instead of the two " treasure cities" of the Heb., adtling On to Pithom and Raamses {Y>.al iiiKoc6f^Li)aav noXiii; oxvpai; Tiij <I>opa(p, tIjv te Ilii^do, icai 'VafxiaaT), Kai "Hv, i) iariv 'MXiovTToXiQ, Exod. i, 11). If it be intended that these cities were founded by the labor of the people, the addition is probably a mistake, although Heliopolis may have been ruined and rebuilt; but it is possible that they were merely fortified, probably as places for keep- ing stores. Heliopolis lay at no great distance from the land of Goshen and from Raamses, and probably Pithom also.
Isaiah has been supposed to speak of On when he prophesies that one of the five cities in Egypt that should speak the language of Canaan should be called Ir-ha-heres, which may mean the City of the Sun, whether we take " heres" to be a Hebrew or an Egyp- tian word ; but the reading " a city of destruction" seems preferable; and we have no evidence that there was any large Jewish settlement at Heliopolis, although there may have been at one time from its nearness to the town of Onias (q. v.). — Jeremiah speaks of On under the name Beth-shemesh, " the house of the sun" (comp. "oppidum solis," Pliny, //iV. Nat. v, 11), where he predicts of Nebuchadnezzar, " He shall break also the pillars [? m3S"2, but perhaps statues] of Beth- shemesh, that [is] in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire" (xliii, 13). By the word we have rendered " pil- lars," obelisks are reasonably supposed to be meant, for the number of which before the temple of the sun Heli- opolis must have been famous; and perhaps by "the houses of the gods," the temples of this place are in- tended, as their being burned would be a proof of the powerlessness of Ra and Atum, both forms of the sun, Shu, the god of light, and Tafnet, a fire-goddess, to save their dwellings from the verv element over which they were supposed to rule. — Perhaps it was on account of the many false gods of Heliopolis that, in Ezekiel, On is written Aven, by a change in the punctuation, if we can here depend on the IMasoretic text, and so made to signify " vanity," and especially the vanity of idolatry. The prophet foretells, "The young men of Aven and of Pi-be-seth shall fall by the sword: and these [cities] shall go into captivity" (xxx, 17). Pi- beseth, or Bubastis, is doubtless spoken of with Heli- opolis as in the same part of Egypt, and so to be in- volved in a common calamity at the same time when the land should be invaded.