2. A place in Central Palestine, in which was the house where Gehazi, Elisha's servant, stowed away the presents which he took from Naaman in the name of his master (2 Kings v, 24). See Gemazi; Naaman. In the Auth.Vers.it is wrongly rendered ''the tower;" margin, " the secret place," after the Sept. (to aKorn- v6v). As the name means hill, it is probably here the name especially of an elevation in the immediate vicin- ity of the city of Samaria. Comp. Viervot, Bibl. Brem. Nov. ii, 137 sq.
Opher. See Roe.
Ophereth. See Lead.
Ophiomancy (JxpiQ, a serpent, and f^tavrtln, cliv- innlidii), a species of divination practiced in ancient times by means of serpents. See Divination.
O'phir (Heb. Ophir', "I'^six and "SIX), the name of a man and of a country. "There is apparently no sulKcient reason to doubt that the word Ophir is Shemit- ic, although, as is the case with numerous proper names known to be of Hebrew origin, the precise word does not occur as a common name in the Bible. See the words from "i3X and "iS" in Gesenius's Thesaurus, and com- pare 'A'pcip, the metropolis of the Sabieans in the Peri- ])lus, attril)uted to Arrian. Gesenius suggests that it means a 'fruitful region,' if it is Shemitic. Baron von Wrede, who explored Hadhramaut, in Arabia, in 1843 (Journal nf the Royal Geographical Society, xiv, 110), made a small vocabulary of Ilimyaritic words in the vernacidar tongue, and among these he gives ojir as signifyhig red. He says that the Mahra people call themselves the tribes of the red country {oJir'), and call the Red Sea hahr ojii: If this were so, it might have somewhat of the same relation to aphar, ' dust' or ' dry ground' (X and V being interchangeable) that adorn. ' red,' has to adamah, ' the ground.' Still it is unsafe to accept the use of a word of this kind on the authority of any one traveller, however accurate" (Smith).
1. ("SIX; Sept. Oi''0fi>; \\i\g. Ophir.) The elev- enth named of the thirteen sons of Joktan, the son of Eber, a great - grandson of Shem (Gen. x, 26-29 ; 1 Chron. i, 23). B.C. post 2450. Many Arabian coun-
tries are believed to have been peopled by these per- sons, and to have been called after their respective names, as Sheba, etc., and among others Ophir (Bo- chart, Phalefj, iii, 1 5). See Auabia.
2. (~|iSiX; Sept. Oh<pip, Ovcpeip, v. r. 'Sovcpip, etc.; Vulg. Ophir). A region, famous for its gold, which the ships of Solomon and of the Phoenicians visited. It is difficult to ascertain its situation, the Scripture indica- tions being few and indefinite. By comparing the pas- sages in which it is mentioned (1 Kings ix, 26, 28; x, 11; xxii, 49; so 2 Chron. viii, 18; ix, 10),we learn that it was reached by fleets fitted out in Ezion-Geber (q. v.), on the Gulf of Akabah — the eastern arm of the Red Sea — in the territory of the Edomites ; that the ships made the voyage once in three years (comp. 1 Kings x, 22), bringing large amounts of gold to Palestine, besides silver, precious stones, red sandal-wood, ivory, apes, and peacocks. We know further, from various allusions in the poetical and prophetical books, that Ophir pro- duced the purest and inost precious gold then known (.Job XX, 11, 24; xxviii, 16; Psa. xlv, 9; Isa. xiii, 12; Eccles. vii, 18 ; to which may be added Jer. x, 9 ; Dan. X, 5, if, with many interpreters, we understand Uphaz, TS^X, to be simply a varied orthography of Ophir^ 'nSiX; but see Upiiaz). It is evident that any at- tempt to determine the precise region intended must be more or less uncertain ; but the extreme latitude which conjecture has taken on this question seems hardly jus- tifiable. Nearly every place where gold has ever been found is understood by some writer or another as Ophir. " Calmet {Diet, of the Bible, s. v.) regarded it as in Armenia ; Sir Walter Raleigh (Hist, of the World, bk. i, ch. viii) thought it was one of the Molucca Isl- ands; and Arias Montanus (Bochart, Phalec;, Pref. and ch. ix), led by the similarity of the word Parvaim, sup- posed to be identical with Ophir (2 Chron. iii, 6), found it in Peru. But these countries, as well as Iberia and Phrygia, cannot now be viewed as affording matter for serious discussion on this point, and the three opinions which have found supporters in our own time were for- merly represented, among other writers, by Hi;et {Sur le Commerce et la Navigation des Anciens, p. 59), by Bruce {Travels, bk. ii, ch. iv), and by the historian Rob- ertson {Disquisition respecting Ancient India, sec. i), who placed Ophir in Africa ; by Yitringa {Geogi-aph. Sacra, p. 114) and Reland {Dissertatio de Ophir), who placed it in India ; and by ]Michaelis {Spicilegium, ii, 184), Niebuhr, the traveller {Desciipiion de VA rahie, p. 253), Gossellin {Recherches sur la Geog7-aphie des Aiiciens, ii, 99), and Vincent {History of the Commerce and Nav- igation of the Ancients, ii, 265-270), who placed it in Arabia. Of other distinguished geographical writers, Bochart {Phaleg, ii, 27) admitted two Ophirs, one in Arabia and one in India, i. e. at Ceylon ; while D'Anville {Dissertation sur le Pays d'Ophir, Memoires de la Lit- terature, xxx, 83), equally admitting two, placed one in Arabia and one in Africa. In our own days the dis- cussion has been continued by Gesenius, who in articles on Ophir in his Thesaurus (p. 141), and in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopddie (s. v.), stated that the question lay between India and Arabia, assigning the reasons to be urged in favor of each of these countries, but de- clared the arguments for each to be so equally bal- ancetl that he refrained from expressing any oinnion of his own on the subject. M. Quatremere, however, in a paper on Ophir which was printed in 1842 in the Me- moires de I Institut, again insisted on the claims of Af- rica {Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, t. xv, ii, 362) ; and in his valuable work on Ceylon (pt. vii, ch, i) Sir .1. Emerson Tennant adopts the opinion, sanc- tioned by .Josephus, that .^falacca was Ophir. Other- wise the two countries which have divided the opin- ions of the learned have been India and Arabia — Las- sen, Ritter, Bertheau {Exeget. Handbuch, 2 Chron. viii, 18)^ Thenius {Exeget. Handbuch, 1 Kings x, 22), and Ewald {Geschichte, iii, 347, 2d ed.) being in favor of