who is made of the dust, and must return to dust again. In the New Testament the word is frequently employed in contrast to heaven, and things earthly and carnal are placed in opposition to things heavenly and spiritual.

EAST, or KEDEM, is used to denote a certain region of the globe which includes various empires, kingdoms, and countries. The Hebrews expressed east, west, north, and south, by before, behind, left, and right, according to the peculiar situation of the places looking eastward. By The East are frequently comprehended not only Arabia Deserta, Moab, and Ammon, which are literally east of Palestine, but also Assyria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia or Chaldea, which lie northeast and north of Judea. The term is now applied in modern geography to all the Asiatic countries, considered in their position to Europe. It is, however, very evident that the sacred writers designate Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Persia, provinces beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, as Kedem, or The East. Moses, who was educated in Egypt, and resided some time in Arabia, seems to have followed this custom, especially as Babylonia, Chaldea, Susiana, Persia, a considerable part of Mesopotamia, and the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, during the greater part of their course, are east of Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia. As those who entered Palestine and Egypt on the east chiefly travelled from Armenia, Syria, Media, and Upper Mesopotamia, the Hebrews generally designated those countries The East. Balaam says that Balak, king of Moab, had brought him from the mountains of the East, or from Pethor on the Euphrates. We are informed that Abraham came from The East into the Land of Canaan, and it is known that he came from Mesopotamia and Chaldea. St Matthew says that the Wise Men who worshipped our Saviour on the Nativity came from The East. Some of those Wise Men, who saw the star of the Messiah, and came to Judea to worship him, are believed to have assembled at Muscat in Arabia on their way, if the

relation given by an Armenian bishop, who spent twenty years in visiting the Christians on the coast of Coromandel, is to be credited. These examples, Calmet thinks, confirm the opinion that, in the language of the Scriptures, The East is often used for the provinces which lie easterly, though perhaps inclining to the north of Judea and Egypt.

EBAL, a heap, or collection of old age, or a mass that runs away and disperses, a celebrated mountain in the tribe of Ephraim, opposite Mount Gerizim. Those two mountains are separated from each other by a valley of two hundred paces wide, within which is situated the ancient Sichem or Shechem, now called Neapolis, Napolese, or Nablous, for every traveller seems to have an orthography of his own. Mount Ebal is similar in appearance to Mount Gerizim, but is very barren, while that mountain is extremely fertile. Moses commanded the Israelites, as soon as they had passed the Jordan, to proceed to Shechem, which is on the way to Jerusalem-" and it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?" Deut. xi. 29, 30. Mount Gerizim thus was to become the mountain of blessing, and Mount Ebal the mountain of cursing. These hills were fixed on by Moses for the purpose of pronouncing from them the blessings and the cursings which he proposed to the Children of Israel after they had entered Canaan ; and though he never saw the hills himself, as he did not live to enter the Promised Land, yet, probably from the information of his spies, he speaks accurately of their local situation. Immediately before his death, we find him giving particular instructions respecting the ceremony which was to be performed on Mount

Ebal and the neighbouring mountain. An altar was to be erected on Mount Ebal built of entire stones, plastered over with plaster, but no iron tool was to be used in the construction, and on the stones were to be written all the words of the law to be pronounced. This was to be done in the presence of all the Israelites; the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali, were to be stationed on Mount Ebal, from which the cursings were to be pronounced; while the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, were to be stationed on Mount Gerizim, Deut. xxvii. 4-13. The cursings are given in that chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy (14-26), and are those read in the office of the Commination of the Church of England on the first day of Lent, otherwise Ash-Wednesday. The Levites were ordered to pronounce them, and all the Israelites were expected to express their assent, by the solemn affirmation Amen. The Scriptures seem at first to intimate that six entire tribes were upon one mountain, and six upon the other, but besides that the tribes were too numerous to stand upon the two mountains, it was hardly possible for them to witness the ceremony, or to hear and answer the blessings and cursings; the Hebrew particle, however, means near, over against, as well as at the top of, Josh. viii. 33. Joshua, the successor of Moses, having crossed the Jordan, taken Jericho, burnt the city of Ai, and put to death its king, proceeded to fulfil the last injunctions of Moses. He erected an altar on Mount Ebal, and placed the one half of the tribes, as they had been mentioned by Moses, on it, and the other half on the opposite mountain of Gerizim, and all the words of the law, with the blessings and the cursings, were pronounced to the Israelites, their wives, and families, omitting nothing of what Moses had commanded. From this it is evident that these opposite hills were sufficiently near for the human voice to be distinctly heard. The Jews and Samaritans had bitter disputes about these mountains.

EBENEZER, the stone of help, the name of a place where the Israelites encamped in their war with the Philistines, 1 Sam.iv. 1, and near which they were defeated by the latter with the loss of 30,000 men, when the ark of God was taken by the victors and carried from Ebenezer to Ashdod, 1 Sam. iv. 10, 11; v. 1. Hophni and Phineas, the two sons of Eli the Judge of Israel, were slain in this battle. After the repentance and contrition of the Israelites, they retrieved their disasters by defeating the Philistines, and the Prophet Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us, 1 Sam. vii. 12.

EBRONAH, or HEBRONAH, the name of an encampment of the Israelites in the Wilderness, between Jotbathah and Elath, Numb. xxxiii. 34, 35.

ECBATANA, brother of death, a celebrated city of Great Media, called 'Ayárava by Ctesias and Herodotus, and the name of which Reland deduces from the Persian ac, "dominus,” and abadan, "locus cultus incolisque frequens." This city is not mentioned in the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, but is repeatedly alluded to in the Apocrypha. In the Book of Ezra, indeed, in the reign of Darius, who confirmed the decree of Cyrus for the advancement of the building of the Temple, we are told that "there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record written" (Ezra vi. 2), namely, the decree which Cyrus had made "concerning the house of God at Jerusalem." The word Achmetha is explained in the marginal reading of our Bibles to denote a coffer, or it may be an office for records, but it evidently is a designation of Ecbatana, from the circumstance recorded by Ezra, that after a vain and fruitless search had been made at Babylon for the important decree, it was discovered among the records at Ecbatana, which it is well known was the summer residence of the Persian monarchs. This is confirmed by the writer

of the First Book of Esdras, or Ezra, the name being exactly similar. In compliance with the letter of Sisinnes, governor of Syria and Phoenicia, about 519 B.C., representing the proceedings of the Jews in rebuilding the Temple, and requesting the king, before he interfered to prevent or stop them, to "let search be made among the records of King Cyrus, and if it be found that the building of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem hath been done with the consent of King Cyrus, and if our lord the king be so minded, let him signify unto us thereof: Then commanded King Darius to seek among the records at Babylon; and so at Ecbatana the palace, which is in the country of Media, there was found a roll wherein these things were recorded," 1 Esdras vi. 21, 22, 23. The city is next mentioned as the scene of some of the events of Tobit's life, Tobit vi. 5, vii. 1. It was the residence of his father-in-law Raguel, and he himself is alleged to have died in it in the hundred and twenty seventh year of his age, and "before he died he heard of the destruction of Nineve, which was taken by Nebuchodonosor and Assuerus," namely, Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, and Astyages, the father of Darius the Mede; " and before his death he (Tobit) rejoiced over Nineve," Tobit xiv. 12-15. We read in the Second Book of the Maccabees (ix. 3), that Antiochus Epiphanes was in the city when he received intelligence of the defeat of his armies in Palestine under Nicanor and Timotheus.

Ecbatana is generally admitted to have been built by Dejoces I., but the author of the Book of Judith hints that its founder was Arphaxad, who is supposed by Archbishop Usher and Dr Prideaux to be the same as Dejoces, and by Calmet to be the successor of that monarch, called Phraortes, who may have repaired the city or made some additions to it. For beauty and magnificence Ecbatana was little inferior to Babylon or Nineveh. It was the residence of the first Median kings, and the summer residence in after tines of the Persian monarchs, whose

winter residence was at Shushan. The Parthian kings also, who succeeded them, retired to it in the summer, to avoid the sultry heats of Ctesiphon. It was surrounded by seven walls which rose in gradual ascent, and were painted in seven different colours. The most distant was the lowest, and the innermost contained the royal palace. Those seven inclosures are supposed by some writers to have represented the seven planetary spheres. Herodotus informs us that the walls "were built in circles one within another, rising above each by the height of their respective battlements. This mode of building was favourable to the situation of the place, which was a gentle rising ground. The largest of these walls was of a white colour, the next to it was black, the next purple, the fourth blue, the fifth orange. The two innermost walls were differently ornamented, one having its battlements plated with silver, the other with gold." The circumference of Ecbatana is said to have been from one hundred and eighty to two hundred furlongs, which would amount to nearly twenty-four English miles. In the Book of Judith we are told that the walls of the city which Arphaxad built were of stones hewn three cubits broad and six cubits long, and the height of the wall seventy cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits; and he (Arphaxad) set the towers thereof upon the gates of it an hundred cubits high, and the breadth thereof in the foundation threescore cubits; and he made the gates thereof, even gates that were raised to the height of seventy cubits, and the breadth of them was forty cubits, for the going forth of his mighty armies, and for the setting in array of his footmen," Judith i. 2, 3, 4. It may be observed, however, in opposition to the author of the Book of Judith, that Diodorus Siculus expressly contradicts both his account and that of Herodotus, asserting that the city had no walls, and we certainly find it offering little resistance to any enemy who appeared before it; but if the historian Elian is to be credited, the walls of Ecbatana were thrown to the

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ground by Alexander the Great during the bursts of immoderate grief which that conqueror manifested for the death of Hephæstion his favourite, who died in the city. The mode of ornamenting walls, described in this instance by Herodotus, is said to be still used at the present day in many towns of India and China.

The palace of Ecbatana is described as having been about an English mile in compass, and was built in a style of great magnificence, some of its beams having been of silver, and others of cedar strengthened with plates of gold. Josephus informs us that the Prophet Daniel built a tower at Ecbatana, which existed in his time, of singular beauty and solidity; and some writers have conjectured that this tower, as the Jewish historian calls it, was the palace. If it was not built before the time of Daniel, he could merely have overlooked the work, or given the design by order of Darius the Mede, with whom he was in high favour, and who is alleged to have built the palace when he selected Ecbatana as his summer residence.

The site of this ancient city-for, like other cities of antiquity, it has disappeared and given place to a modern one-has caused considerable discussion. Sir John Chardin, Gibbon, and Sir William Jones, are in favour of the modern Tauris, while D'Anville and Rennell declare for Hamadan in the western Persian province of Irac. This latter has been supported by recent travellers of great learning and acute observation. Mr Morier merely mentions "Ecbatana or Hamadan ;" but Sir John Malcolm, Sir R. K. Porter, and Mr Buckingham, farther confirm the site. Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, is situated in a fine plain near the base of the Orontes, and other widely-extended hills. "This vale," says Sir R. K. Porter, "is varied at short distances with numberless castellated villages, rising from amidst groves of the noblest trees, while the great plain itself stretches northward and eastward to such far remoteness, that its mountain boundaries appear like clouds upon the horizon. The whole

tract seems one carpet of luxuriant verdure, studded with hamlets and watered by beautiful rivulets. On the south-west, Orontes, or Elwund (by whichever name we distinguish this most towering division of the mountain), presents itself in all the grandeur of its frame and form. Near its base appear the dark-coloured dwellings of Hamadan, crowded thickly on each other, while the gardens of the inhabitants, with their connecting orchards and woods, fringe the entire slope of that part of the mountain. If the aspect of this part of the country now presents so rich a picture when 'its palaces are no more,' what must it have been when Astyages held his court here, and Cyrus in his yearly courses from Persepolis, Susa, and Babylon, stretched his golden sceptre over this delicious plain? I brought away from Ecbatana several old coins of Alexander the Great, of different sizes. The identity of this city's situation seems to be established beyond a doubt; the plain, the mountain, and the relative position of the place, with regard to other noted cities, agreeing in every point. The site also of the modern town, like that of the ancient city, is on a gradual ascent, terminating near the foot of the eastern side of the mountain, but there all trace of past appearance would cease, were it not for two or three considerable elevations and overgrown irregularities on or near them, which may have been the walls of the royal fortress, with those of the palaces, temples, and theatres, seen no more. I passed one of those heights, standing to the south-west as I entered the city, and observed that it bore many vestiges of having been strongly fortified. The sides and summit are covered with large remnants of ruined walls of a great thickness, and also of towers, the materials of which were sun-dried bricks. It has the name of the Inner Fortress, and certainly holds the most commanding situation near the plain.”

When the name of Ecbatana merged into that of Hamadan, the lofty city of Astyages lost its honour and importance. While it retained its ancient designation,

as the city in which great monarchs had dictated their decrees, and where "Cyrus the king had placed in the house of the rolls of its palace the record wherein was written his order for rebuilding Jerusalem," it was even of some consequence three centuries after the commencement of the Christian era. Towards the end of the fourteenth century it received its most disastrous blow from Timour the Tartar, who sacked, pillaged, and destroyed its proudest buildings, ruined the inhabitants, and reduced the gorgeous summer residence of the Persian and Parthian kings, one of the most considerable cities of the East, to a mere skeleton of its former greatness. In that dismantled state it lay, dwindled to a mere clay-built suburb of what it was, until the middle of the eighteenth century, although it still possessed iron gates, until Aga Mahomed Khan, then sovereign of Persia, not satisfied with the degradation of nearly four hundred years, ordered every memorial or building of consequence to be destroyed. His commands were faithfully obeyed. Narrow mud alleys occupy the sites of former streets and squares, interrupted by large holes, or hollows in the way, and crumbled walls of deserted dwellings. "A miserable bazar or two," says Porter, "are passed through in traversing the town, and large lonely spots are met with, marked by broken low mounds over older ruins, with here and there a few poplars or willow trees shadowing the border of a dirty stream abandoned to the meanest purposes, which probably flowed pellucid and admired when these places were gardens, and the grass-grown heap some stately dwelling of Ecbatana. The only thing that appears for some years to have kept the place in any degree of notice with the modern Persians is the manufacture of an inferior sort of leather; but the very article of traffic proclaims the low order of population to which it has been abandoned, and as I passed through the wretched hovelled streets, and saw the once lofty city of Astyages shrunk like a shrivelled gourd, the contemplation of such a spectacle

called forth more saddening reflections than any that had been awakened in me on any former ground of departed greatness. In some I had seen mouldering pomp or sublime desolation; in this every object spoke of neglect and hopeless poverty-not majesty in stately ruin, pining to final dissolution, but beggary seated on the place which kings had occupied, squalid in rags, and stupid with misery." Mr Buckingham found Hamadan in almost the same situation when he visited it, although it had a few years previously been created a royal government, to which Mahmoud Ali Mirza, a son of the Shah, had been appointed; and palaces, mansions, new bazars, and mercantile caravanserais, were erecting, or had been planned. "The entrance to the town of Hamadan was as mean as that of the smallest village we had seen, and great ruin and desertion were apparent on every side. We con tinued our way through poor bazars and miserable streets, until after much difficulty we obtained shelter in a half-ruined caravansera." Sir R. K. Porter estimates the number of houses at nine thousand, a third of which are inhabited by persons employed by the state, who are thereby exempted from the taxation of the town, and the population at between 40,000 and 50,000 souls, amongst whom there are about six hundred Jewish families, and nearly, the same number of Armenians. In the time of Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Hamadan, and describes the tomb of Esther and Mordecai, there were no less than fifty thousand Jews settled in it, which is more than the whole of the present population; while in the city of Ispahan, although the chief-priest, on whom all the Jews of Persia were dependent, resided there in a kind of college, there were not more than fifteen thousand. This fact certainly proves not only the high antiquity of Hamadan, but that it was also regarded with such peculiar veneration by the Jews, as to draw more of them to reside in it than in Ispahan.

Ecbatana, or Hamadan, is not without