West (expressed in Heb. by "linx, behind; d^, the sea ; "i^'O'i'tl Nia, the going down of the sun [and so in Greek Cvapr], sunset^; 'Z~\"^, evening). The Shemite, in speaking of the quarters of the heavens, etc., sup- poses his face turned towards the east; so that the east
WEST
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WEST
is before him. a"lp, strictly what is before or in front; the south on his right hand, *p^ri, strictly what lies to the right; the north on his left hand, bXT2"J, the left side ; and the west behind him, "nnx, literally the hind- er side. The last Hebrew word, though never trans- lated " west" in our version, means so : as in Isa. ix, 12, " the Philistines behind," opposed to the Syrians, O'lJ^ : Sept. a<p' i)\iov hxT^utv; Vulg. «& occidente ; and in Job xxiii, 8. The words (Deut. xi, 24) " the uttermost sea," YlinXrt Cn, are rendered in the Sept. f wc r/jc ba\daai]Q t)]Q tiri fuff/twi'; Vnlg. ad mare occidentale (comp. xxxiv, 2; Joel ii, 20). The more general use of the word "linX for the west was doubtless super- seded among the inhabitants of Palestine by D^, liter- ally " the sea," that is, the Mediterranean Sea, which lay to the west, and which, as a more palpable object, became to them the representative of the west general- ly, and chiefly associated with their ideas of it. Ac- cordingly this word D"^ and its derivatives, ira"!, etc., are thirty-two times rendered by baXaaaa, in the Sept., and only once by cvcTfiai ; in the Vulg. by occidens and mare. It is used to signify a quarter of the heavens, or of the earth ((ien. xxviii, 14; Deut. xxxiii, 23; 1 Kings vii, 25; 1 Chron. ix, 24; 2 Chron. iv, 4; Isa. xi, 14; xlix, 12; Ezek. xlviii, 1 ; Hos. xi, 10; Zech. xiv, 4). It is used adjectively in the same sense; as, west border (Numb, xxxiv, 6; Josh, xv, 12; Ezek. xlv, 7) ; western (Numb, xxxiv, 6); west quarter (Josh, xviii, 14); west side (Exod. xxvii, 12; xxxviii, 12; Numb, ii, 18; xxxv, 5; Ezek. xlviii, 3-8, 23, 24); westward (Gen. xiii, 14; Numb, iii, 23; Deut. iii, 27; Ezek. xlviii, 18; Dan. viii, 4) ; west wind (Exod. x, 19). Those words of Moses, "Naphtali, possess thou the west and the south" (Deut. xxxiii, 23), seem to contradict the statement of Josephus, that this tribe possessed the east and the north in Up- per Galilee {Ant. v, 1,22) ; but Bocliart interprets "the south," not with regard to the whole land of Canaan, but to the Danites, mentioned in ver. 22; and by "the west" he understands the lake of Tiberias, otherwise called the sea of Tiberias, or tialilee, or (Jennesaret; for the portion of Naphtali extended from the south of the city called Dan or Laish to the sea of Tiberias, which was in this tribe. So all the Chaldee paraphrasts ex- pound the word C^, here translated tcest ; Sept. ^aXaa- oav (cat Ai'/3a; Vulg. mare et meridiem {Hieroz. pt. i, lib. iii, c. 18). In some passages the word signilies the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and " the islands of the sea" denotes the western part of the world, or European nations. Thus, in regard to the future restoration of the Jews to their own land, it is said (Hos. xi, 10), " when the Lord shall roar, then the children shall trem- ble ( that is, hasten ; an allusion to the motion of a bird's wings in flying) from the west" (see ver. 11, and comp. Isa. xxiv, 14, 15, with xi, 1 1 ; xxiv, 14). In the account given of the removal of the plague of locusts from Egypt, we are told (Exod. x, 19), " the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind," Q'^~ni"i, dvifiov cnrb Sra- \d<Tfft]C- Supposing that these were the very words of Moses, or a literal rendering of his words, it follows that the Egyptians made a similar reference to the Mediter- ranean, since Moses, an Egyptian, would no doubt use the language of his country in describing an event which occurred in it. If his words do not refer to the Mediterranean, they must refer to the far-distant At- lantic, which, however, according to Herodotus, was not known to the Egyptians till many ages afterwards. Moses also represents God as saying to Abram, in the land, " Lift up thine eyes and look northward, and south- ward, and eastward, and westward, fTO^ (Gen. xiii, 14). The allusion to the sea in the latter passage may be ac- counted for upon the supposition that the very words of (iod to Abram had been preserved, and were inserted by Moses in his history. In two passages (Psa. cvii, 3 ;
Isa. xlix, 12) d1''2 stands opposed to "(ISS'O, but ought still to be rendered "the west:" comp. Amos viii, 12; Deut. xxxiii, 23. The west is also indicated by the phrase TT^Ti^ri X13"a 'J'liX, Sept. aTTo yi]Q ^vrr^Civ, Vidg. de terra occasus soils. These words are trans- lated " the west country" in Zech. viii, 7, literally, the country of the going-down of the sun, and are fully translated in Psa. 1, 1 ; cxiii, 3^ Mai. i, 11 ; comp. Deut. xi, 30; Josh, i, 4; xxiii, 4. Another word by which the west is denoted is 2"i"^, from 3'^'', to remove, pass away, disappear as the sun does; hence the quar- ter of the heavens, etc., where the sun sets, the west. The same idea is conveyed in the Greek word cixr/ua/, from Ivu). It occurs in 1 Chron. xii, 15; Psa. Ixxv, 6; ciii, 12; cvii, 3; Isa. xliii, 5; xlv, 6; lix, 19; Sept. ^vtr- ^lai ; Vulg. occidens : in Dan. viii, 5, Sept. Ai\p ; Vulg. occidens. It is used to denote the west quarter of the heavens or earth. In the Apocrypha and New Test, the word translated "west" invarial)ly corresponds to Svcrftai (Jud. ii, 19; Matt, viii, 11 ; xxiv, 27; Luke xii, 54; xiii, 29; Rev. xxi, 13); Vulg. occidens, occasiis. Our Lord's memorable words, "They shall come from the east and the west," etc. (Matt, viii, 11), to which Luke adds "and from the north and the south" (xiii, 29), sig- nify all the regions of the world; as in classical writers also (Xenoph. Ci/r. i, 1, 3). Grotius thinks that this passage refers to the promise to Jacob (Gen. xxviii, 14). In our Lord's prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (Matt, xxiv, 27), "For as the lightning Cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so also shall the coming of the son of man be," he is supposed to have intimated the precise direction in which the Roman army conducted the invasion. His reference to the cloud, rtjv I'ttptXijr, rising out of the west, as the precursor of a shower (comp. 1 Kings xviii, 43-46), still corresponds to the weather in Palestine. Volney says, " The west and south-west winds, which in Syria and Palestine prevail from November to Feb- ruary, are, to borrow an expression of the Arabs, 'the fathers of shotvers''" {Voyage en tSi/rie, i, 297 ; comp. Shaw, Travels, p. 329). — Kitto. Notable instances of such showers are those at the battle of Bethhoron (Josh. X, 11), and Elijah's sacrifice on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings xviii, 44).