1. Pj^X (or P3S), uhdl, used only in three passages of Daniel (viii, 2, 3, 6). '■ I was by the river of Ulai." It comes from the root >3'i, which, like the correspond- ing Arabic, signifies to jioio copiously. Its derivative, ?13^, is the Hebrew term for deluge.
2. p'^SX, aphil; from pSX, to hold or restrain. It thus comes to signify " a channel," from the fact of its "holding" or "restraining" within its banks a river. It is said in 2 Sam. xxii, 16, " The channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered" (comp. Psa. xviii, 1.0). The psalmist gives it very appro- priately to the glens of the Negeb (south), which are dry during a great part of the year : " Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the channels in the Negeb." The beauty of this passage is marred hy the present trans- lation, "streams in the south" (Psa. cxxvi, 4). The word is rightly translated " channels" in Isa. viii, 7. It ought to be rendered in the same way in Ezek. xxxii, 6: "And the chunneh (rivers) shall be full of thee." But the most striking example of a wrong rendering is in Joel iii, 18 : " And all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters." See Aphik.
3. "IIX'I' (or "ijt^), year, is an Egyptian word, which is applied originally, and almost exclusiveh', to the river Nile, and, in the plural, to the canals by which the Nile water was distributed throughout Egypt, or to streams having a connection with that country. It properly denotes a fosse or river (it was expressed bj' ioro in the dialect of Memphis, and by iero in that of Thebes, while it appears as ior in the Rosetta inscription). It was introduced into the Hebrew language by Moses, and is used more frequentl}' in the Pentateuch than in all the rest of the Bible. As employed by him it has the definiteness of a proper name. Thus, " Pharaoh stood by the river" (Gen. xli, 1 ; comp. ver. 2, 3, 17, etc.) : " Every son that is born ye shall cast into the i-iver" (Exod. i, 22). The Nile was emphaticallj' the river of Egypt. Subsequent writers, when speaking of the riv- er of Egypt, generally borrow the same word (Isa. vii, 18; xix, 6; Jer. xlvi, 7; Ezek. xxix, 3; Amos viii, 8, etc.). In a few places it is employed to denote a large and mighty river, not like the rivulets or winter torrents of Palestine. Thus in Isa. xxiii, 10: "Pass through the land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish" (comp. xxxiii, 21). The usual rendering of this word in the A. V. is "river;" but it is translated "streams" in Isa. xxxiii, 21 ; " flood" in Jer. xlvi, 7, 8 ; Amos viii, 8, etc. ; and
" brooks" in Isa. xix, G, 7, 8, where reference is manifest- ly made to the "canals" which convey the water of the Nile to different parts of Egypt. See Nile.
4. ?5'1"') yuljiil, is found only in Jer. xvii, 8 : "He shall be as a tree . . . that spreadeth out her roots by the river." The word is radically identical witii b^^X (No. 1), and its meaning is the same.
5. '^nS, nuhiir, from the root "Ill5, which signifies to flow ; and it may be regarded as the proper Hebrew equivalent for our word river. The cognate Arabic nahr has the same meaning, in which language also, as in Hebrew, it includes canals, as the " A'aAurawan of Khuzistan;" and the Scripture must mean the Euphrates and its canals, where it speaks of " the rivers (iiaharoth) of Babylon" (Psa. cxxxvii, 1). It is always applied to a perennial stream. It is possibly used of the Jordan in Psa. Ixvi, 6; Ixxiv, 15; of the great Mesopotamian and Egyptian rivers generally in Gen. ii, 10; Exod. vii, 19; 2 Kings xvii, C; Ezek. iii, 15, etc. It is often fol- lowed by the genitives of countries, as " the river of Egypt" (Gen. xv, 18), that is, the Nile; ^'■the river of Gozan" (2 Kings xvii, 6) ; " the rivers of Ethiopia" (Isa. xviii, 1) ; " the rivers of Damascus" (2 Kings v, 12). With the article, ^riScl, han-nahdr, the word is applied emphatically to the £u])hrafes ; thus in Gen. xxxi, 21, "He rose up, and passed over the river;" and Exod. xxiii, 31, " I will set thy bounds . . . from the desert unto the rife?-" (Numb, xxiv, 6; 2 Sam. x, 16, etc. ). The Euphrates is also called " the great river" (Gen. XV, 18; Deut. i, 7, etc.). In one passage this word, without the article, evidently signifies the Nile (Isa. xix, 5) ; though in poetry, when thus used, the Eu- phrates is meant (vii, 20; Psa. Ixxii, 8; Zech. ix, 10). In a few passages the word is translated " flood" (Josh. xxiv, 2; Job xiv, 11; Psa. Ixvi, 6); but with a few exceptions (Josh, i, 4; xxis', 2, 14, 15; Isa. lix, 19; Ezek. xxxi, 15), nahdr is uniformly rendered " river" in our version, and accurately, since it is never applied to the fleeting fugitive torrents of Palestine. See To- pographical Tekms.
6. ?ri2, nuchal, is derived from the root PHS, which signifies to receive or to possess. Its usual meaning is a valley, probably from the fact of its receiving the sur- face-water after rains, and affording a bed for a stream. Sometimes it is applied to a valley or glen, apart alto- gether from the idea of a stream. Thus in Gen. xxvi, 17, Abraham " pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar." As manv of the valleys of Palestine were the beds of winter streams, the word was sometimes applied to the stream itself, as in Lev. xi, 9, 10 ; the " valley," the "brook," and the "river" Zered (Numb, xxi, 12; Deut. ii, 13; Amos vi, 14); the "brook" and the "river" of Jabbok (Gen. xxxii, 23 ; Deut. ii, 37), of Kishon (Judg. iv, 7; 1 Kings xviii, 40). Comp. also Deut. iii, 16, etc. Jerome, in his Qucesiiones in Genesim, xxvi, 19, draws the following curious distinction between a valley and a torrent: " Et hie pro valle torrens scriptus est, nun- quam enim in valle invenitur puteus aqua; vivas." Sometimes, however, the rendering is incorrect, and convej's a very wrong impression. In Numb, xiii, 23 " the brook Eshcol" should manifestly be " the valley of Eshcol;" and in Deut. iii, 16 the same word is ren- dered in two ways — " unto tlie river Arnon half //«' valliy" (comp. .Tosh, xii, 2). Again, in Josh, xiii, 6 the sacred writer is represented as speaking of " a city that is in the midst o{ the river ;" it means, of course, valley (comp. 2 Sam. xxiv, 5). Frequent mention is made of the "brook Kidron" (2 Kings xxiii, 6, 12; 2 Chron. xv, 16; xxix, 16; XXX, 14) ; but V(dley is the true meaning. In Psa. Ixxviii, 20 is the following: "He smote the rock, tliat the waters gushed out, and the streams over- flowed."