Nile

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Not so named in the Bible; related to Sanskrit Νilah , "blue." The Nile has two names: the sacred name Ηapi , or Ηapi-Mu , "the abyss of waters," Ηp-Ro-Mu , "the waters whose source is hidden"; and the common name Υeor Αor , Aur (Atur): both Egyptian names. Shihor , "the black river," is its other Bible name, Greek Μelas or Κmelas , Latin Μelo , darkened by the fertilizing soil which it deposits at its overflow ( Jeremiah 2:18). The hieroglyphic name of Egypt is Κam , "black." Egyptians distinguished between Ηapi-Res , the "southern Nile" of Upper Egypt, and Ηapi-Meheet , the "northern Nile" of Lower Egypt. Ηapi-Ur , "the high Nile," fertilizes the land; the Nile low brought famine. The Nile god is painted red to represent the inundation, but blue at other times. An impersonation of Noah (Osburn). Famine and plenty are truly represented as coming up out of the river in Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41). Therefore they worshipped it, and the plague on its waters, was a judgment on that idolatry ( Exodus 7:21;  Psalms 105:29). (See Egypt ; Exodus

The rise begins at the summer solstice; the flood is two months later, after the autumnal equinox, at its height pouring through cuttings in the banks which are higher than the rest of the soil and covering the valley, and lasting three months. ( Amos 8:8;  Amos 9:5;  Isaiah 23:3). The appointed S.W. bound of Palestine ( Joshua 13:3;  1 Chronicles 13:5;  2 Chronicles 9:26;  Genesis 15:18).  1 Kings 8:65 "stream" ( Nachal , not "river".) Its confluent is still called the Blue river; so Nilah means "darkblue," or "black." The plural "rivers" is used for the different mouths, branches, and canals of the Nile. The tributaries are further up than Egypt ( Psalms 78:44;  Exodus 7:18-20;  Isaiah 7:18;  Isaiah 19:6;  Ezekiel 29:3;  Ezekiel 30:12). "The stream ( Nachal ) of Egypt" seems distinct ( Isaiah 27:12), now "wady el Arish" (Where Was The Frontier City Rhino-Corura) on the confines of Palestine and Egypt ( Joshua 15:4;  Joshua 15:47, where for "river" should stand "stream," Nachal) ).

Smith's Bible Dictionary suggests that Nachal) is related to the Nile and is that river; but the distinctness with which Nachal) is mentioned, and not as elsewhere Sihor, or "river," Υe'Or , forbids the identification. "The rivers of Ethiopia" ( Isaiah 18:1-2), Cush, are the Atbara, the Astapus or Blue river, between which two rivers Meroe (The Ethiopia Meant In Isaiah 18) lies, and the Astaboras or White Nile; these rivers conjoin in the one Nile, and wash down the soil along their banks from Upper Egypt, and deposit it on Lower Egypt; compare "whose land (Upper Egypt) the rivers have spoiled" or "cut up" or "divided." The Nile is called "the sea" ( Isaiah 19:5), for it looks a sea at the overflow; the Egyptians still call it El Bahr "the sea" ( Nahum 3:8). Its length measured by its course is probably 3,700 miles, the longest in the world. Its bed is cut through layers of nummulitic limestone (Of Which The Pyramids Of Ghizeh Are Built, Full Of Nummulites, Which The Arabs Call "Pharaoh'S Beans") , sandstone under that, breccia verde under that, azoic rocks still lower, with red granite and syenite rising through all the upper strata at the first cataract.

Sir Samuel Baker has traced its (the White Nile's) source up to the Tanganyika, Victoria, and Albert Nyanza lakes, filled with the melting snows from the mountains and the periodical equatorial heavy rains. The Hindus call its source Αmana , the name of a region N.E. of the Nyanza. The shorter confluent, the Blue river, is what brings down from the Abyssinian mountains the alluvial soil that fertilizes Egypt. The two join at Khartoom, the capital of Soodan, the black country under Egypt's rule. The Atbara falls into the main stream further N. The river thenceforth for 2,300 miles receives no tributary. Through the breaking down of a barrier at Silsilis or at the first cataract, the river is so much below the level of the valley in lower Nubia that it does not overflow on the land. On the confines of Upper Egypt it forms two cataracts, the lower near Syene. Thence it runs 500 miles onward. A short way below Cairo and the pyramids it parts into two branches, bounding the Delta E. and W. and falling into the Mediterranean. Always diffusing its waters, and never receiving any accession of water from sky or tributary, its volume at Cairo is but half what it is at the cataract of Syene.

The water is sweet, especially when turbid. Stagnant waters left by the overflow in Nubia's sandy flats are carried into the Nile by the new overflow, thus the water is at first a green shiny color and unwholesome for two or three days. Twelve days later it becomes red like blood, and is then most wholesome and refreshing; and all living beings, men, beasts, birds, fish, and insects are gladdened by its advent. Egypt having only a little rain ( Zechariah 14:17-18) depends on the Nile for its harvests; see in  Deuteronomy 11:10-12 the contrast to the promised land, where the husbandman has to look up to heaven for rain instead of looking down, irrigating the land. with watercourses turned by the foot as in Egypt (A Type Of The Spiritual State Of The Two Respectively) , and where Jehovah's eyes are upon it from the beginning to the end of the year. The waters reach their lowest in nine months groin their highest point in the autumn equinox; they remain stationary for a few days and then begin to rise again.

If they reach no higher than 22 ft. at the island Rhoda, between Cairo and Ghizeh, where a nilometer is kept, the rise is insufficient; if 27, good; if more, the flood injures the crops, and plague and murrain ensue. The further S. one goes, the earlier the inundation begins; at Khartoom as early as April. The seven years' famine under Joseph is confirmed by the seven years' famine in the reign of Fatimee Khaleefeh El-Mustansir bi-'llah, owing to the failure of water. The universal irrigation maintained, even during the low season of the Nile, made the results of failure of its waters more disastrous then than now. The mean rise above the lowest level registered at Semne, near the second cataract, in Moeris' reign, 2000 B.C., was 62 ft. 6 inches, i.e. 23 ft. 10 inches above the present rise which is 38 ft. 8 inches (Lepsius in the Imperial Dictionary) The average rate of deposit in Egypt now is four and a half inches in the century.

But other causes were at work formerly; the danger of inferences as to man's antiquity from such data is amusingly illustrated by Homer's (Philippians Transac. 148) inference from pottery found at a great depth that man must have lived there in civilization 13,000 years ago, which Bunsen accepted! Unfortunately for the theory the Greek honeysuckle was found on some of it. The burnt brick still lower, on which he laid stress, was itself enough to have confuted him, for burnt brick was first introduced into Egypt under Rome (see Quarterly Revue, April, 1859). Champollion holds no Egyptian monument to be older than 2,200 B.C. In Upper Egypt bore yellow mountains, a few hundred feet high, and pierced with numerous tombs, bound the N. on both sides; this gives point to Israel's sneer, "because there were no graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?" ( Exodus 14:11).

In Lower Egypt the land spreads out on either side of the Nile in a plain bounded E. and W. by the desert. At the inundation the Nile rushes along in a mighty torrent, made to appear more violent by the waves which the N. wind, blowing continually then, raises up ( Jeremiah 46:7-8). Two alone of the seven noted branches of the mouth (Of Which The Pelusiac Was The Most Eastern) remain, the Damietta (Phanitic) and Rosetta (Bolbitine) mouths, originally artificial (Herodotus ii. 10), fulfilling  Isaiah 19:5 and probably  Isaiah 11:11-15;  Ezekiel 30:12. The Nile in the numerous canals besides the river itself formerly "abounded with incredible numbers of all sorts of fish" (Diodorus Siculus i.;  Numbers 11:5). These too, as foretold ( Isaiah 19:8-10), have failed except about lake Menzaleh. So also the papyrus reeds, from whence paper receives its designation, flags, reeds, and the lotus with its fragrant and various colored flowers, have almost disappeared as foretold ( Isaiah 19:6-7), the papyrus boats no more skim its surface ( Isaiah 18:2).

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

The celebrated river of Egypt. It takes this name only after the junction of the two great streams of which it is composed, namely, the Bahr el Abiad, or White River, which rises in the mountains of the Moon, in the interior of Africa, and runs northeast till it is joined by the other branch, the Bahr el Azrek, or Blue river, which rises in Abyssinia, and after a large circuit to the southeast and southwest, in which it passes through the lake of Dembea, flows northwards to join the White river. This Abyssinian branch has in modern times been regarded as the real Nile, although the White River is much the largest and longest, and was in ancient times considered as the true Nile. The junction takes place about latitude sixteen degrees north. From this point the Nile flows always in a northerly direction, with the exception of one large bend to the west. About thirteen hundred miles form the sea it receives its last branch, the Tacazze, a large stream from Abyssinia, and having passed through Nubia, it enters Egypt at the cataracts near Syene, or Essuan, which are formed by a chain of rocks stretching east and west. There are here three falls; after which the river pursues its course in still and silent majesty through the whole length of the land of Egypt. Its average breadth is about seven hundred yards. In Lower Egypt it divides into several branches and forms the celebrated Delta; for which see under Egypt . See also a view of the river in Ammon or NoAmmon, or No.

As rain very seldom falls, even in winter, in Southern Egypt, and usually only slight and infrequent showers in Lower Egypt, the whole physical and political existence of Egypt may be said to depend on the Nile; since without this river, and even without its regular annual inundation's, the whole land would be but a desert. These inundation's, so mysterious in the view of ancient ignorance and superstition, are caused by the regular periodical rains in the countries farther south, around the sources of the Nile, in March and later. The river begins to rise in Egypt about the middle of June, and continues to increase through the month of July. In August it overflows its banks, and reaches its highest point early in September; and the country is then mostly covered with its waters,  Amos 8:8   9:5   Nahum 3:8 . In the beginning of October, the inundation still continues; and it is only towards the end of this month that the stream returns within its banks. From the middle of August till towards the end of October, the whole land of Egypt resembles a great lake or sea, in which the towns and cities appear as islands.

The cause of the fertility which the Nile imparts lies not only in its thus watering the land, but also in the thick slimy mud which its waters bring down along with them and deposit on the soil of Egypt. It is like a coat of rich manure; and the seed being immediately sown upon it, without digging or ploughing, springs up rapidly, grows with luxuriance, and ripens into abundance. See Egypt .

It must not, however, be supposed that the Nile spreads itself over every spot of land, and waters it sufficiently without artificial aid. Niebuhr justly remarks, "Some descriptions of Egypt would lead us to think that the Nile, when it swells, lays the whole province under water. The lands immediately adjoining to the banks of the river are indeed laid under water, but the natural inequality of the ground hinders it from overflowing the interior country. A great part of the lands would therefore remain barren, were not canals and reservoirs formed to receive water from the river, when at its greatest height, which is thus conveyed everywhere through the fields, and reserved for watering them when occasion requires." In order to raise the water to grounds, which lie higher, machines have been used in Egypt from times immemorial. These are chiefly wheels to which buckets are attached. One kind is turned by oxen; another smaller kind, by men seated, and pushing the lower spokes from them with their feet, while they pulled the upper spokes towards them with their hands,  Deuteronomy 11:10 .

As the inundations of the Nile are of so much importance to the whole land, structures have been erected on which the beginning and progress of its rise might be observed. These are called Nilometers; that is, "Nile measures." At present there is one, one thousand years old and half in ruins, on the little island opposite Cairo; it is under the care of the government, and according to it the beginning and subsequent progress of the rise of the Nile were carefully observed and proclaimed by authority. If the inundation reached the height of twenty-two Paris feet, a rich harvest was expected; because then all the fields had received the requisite irrigation. If it fell short of this height and in proportion as it thus fell short, the land was threatened with want and famine of which many horrible examples occur in Egyptian history. Should the rise of the water exceed twenty-eight Paris feet, a famine was in like manner feared. The annual rise of the river also varies exceedingly in different parts of its course, being twenty feet greater where the river is narrow than in Lower Egypt. The channel is thought to be gradually filling up; and many of the ancient outlets at the Delta are dry in summer and almost obliterated. The drying up of the waters of Egypt would involve its destruction as a habitable land to the destruction as a habitable land to the same extent; and this fact is recognized in the prophetic denunciations of this remarkable country,  Isaiah 11:15   19:1-10   Ezekiel 29:10   30:12 .

The water of the Nile, although during a great part of the year turbid, from the effects of the rains above, yet furnishes, when purified by settling, the softest and sweetest water for drinking. Its excellence is acknowledged by all travelers. The Egyptians are full of its praises, and even worshipped the river as a god.

The Hebrews sometimes gave both to the Euphrates and the Nile the name of "sea,"  Isaiah 19:5   Nahum 3:8 . In this they are borne out by Arabic writers, and also by the common people of Egypt, who to this day commonly speak of the Nile as "the sea." It is also still celebrated for its fish. Compare  Numbers 11:5   Isaiah 19:8 . In its waters are likewise found the crocodile or leviathan, and the hippopotamus or behemoth. See Egypt , and Sihor .

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Nile. (Blue, Dark). Nile , The Great River Of Egypt. The word, Nile, nowhere occurs in the Authorized Version, but it is spoken of under the names of Sihor, See Sihor , and the "river of Egypt."  Genesis 15:18. We cannot as yet determine the length of the Nile, although recent discoveries have narrowed the question. There is scarcely a doubt, that its largest confluent is fed by the great lakes, on and south of the equator. It has been traced upward, for about 2700 miles, measured by its course, not in a direct line, and its extent is probably over 1000 miles more.

(The course of the river has been traced for 3300 miles. For the first 1800 miles, (McClintock and Strong say, 2300 miles), from its mouth, it receives no tributary, but at Kartoom, the capital of Nubia, is the junction of the two great branches, the White Nile and the Blue Nile , so called, from the color of the clay, which tinges their waters. The Blue Nile rises in the mountains of Abyssinia, and is the chief source of the deposit, which the Nile brings to Egypt. The White Nile is the larger branch.

Late travellers have found its source in Lake Victoria Nyanza, three degrees south of the equator. From this lake to the mouth of the Nile, the distance is 2300 miles in a straight line - one eleventh the circumference of the globe. From the First Cataract, at Syene, the river flows smoothly, at the rate of two or three miles an hour, with a width of half a mile, to Cairo. A little north of Cairo. It divides into two branches, one flowing to Rosetta. And the other to Damietta, from which place. The mouths are named. See Bartlett'S "Egypt And Palestine," 1879.

The great peculiarity of the river is its annual overflow, caused by the periodical tropical rains. "With wonderful clock-like regularity, the river begins to swell, about the end of June, rises 24 feet at Cairo, between the 20th and 30th of September, and falls as much, by the middle of May. Six feet higher than this is devastation; six feet lower is destitution." - Bartlett. So that the Nile increases one hundred days and decreases one hundred days, and the culmination scarcely varies three days from September 25, the autumnal equinox.

Thus, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." As to the cause of the years of plenty and of famine in the time of Joseph, Mr. Osburn, in his "Monumental History of Egypt," thinks that the cause of the seven years of plenty was the bursting of the barriers, (and gradually wearing them away), of "the great lake of Ethiopia," which once existed on the upper Nile, thus, bringing more water and more sediment to lower Egypt for those years. And he shows how this same destruction of this immense sea, would cause the absorption of the waters of the Nile, over its dry bed for several years after, thus causing the famine. There is another instance of a seven-years famine - A.D. 1064-1071. - Editor).

The great difference between the Nile of Egypt, in the present day and in ancient times, is caused by the failure of some of its branches, and the ceasing of some of its chief vegetable products, and the chief change in the aspect of the cultivable land, as dependent on the Nile, is the result of the ruin of the fish-pools and their conduits, and the consequent decline of the fisheries.

The river was famous for its seven branches, and under the Roman dominion, eleven were counted, of which, however, there were, but seven principal ones. The monuments and the narratives of ancient writers show us, in the Nile of Egypt, in old times a stream bordered by flags and reeds, the covert of abundant wild fowl, and bearing on its waters, the fragrant flowers of the various-colored lotus.

Now in Egypt scarcely any reeds or waterplants - the famous papyrus being nearly, if not quite, extinct, and the lotus almost unknown - are to be seen, excepting in the marshes near the Mediterranean.

Of old, the great river must have shown a more fair and busy scene than now. Boats of many kinds were ever passing along it, by the painted walls of temples and the gardens that extended around the light summer pavilions, from the pleasure valley, with one great square sail in pattern and many oars, to the little papyrus skiff dancing on the water, and carrying the seekers of pleasure, where they could shoot with arrows, or knock down with the throw-stick, the wild fowl that abounded among the reeds, or engage in the dangerous chase of the hippopotamus or the crocodile. The Nile is constantly before us in the history of Israel in Egypt.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Nile, Blue, Dark. The great river of Egypt and of Africa, its entire length being about 4000 miles. The word "Nile" does not occur in the A. V.. but the river is frequently referred to as Sihor or Shihor, which means a "black" or "turbid" stream,  Joshua 13:3;  Isaiah 23:1-18 î3; where the R. V. reads "Nile;"  Jeremiah 2:18;  Jeremiah 46:7-8, E. V. "Nile;"  1 Chronicles 13:5. It is also designated simply the "river," R. V. margin, "Nile,"  Genesis 41:1;  Exodus 1:22;  Exodus 2:3;  Exodus 2:5, and the "flood of Egypt," R. V., "River of Egypt,"  Amos 8:8;  Amos 9:5. In the plural form this word Yeor, rendered "river," frequently refers to the branches and canals of the Nile. This famous river is connected with the earliest history of the Egyptian and the Israelitish nations.  Exodus 2:3;  Exodus 7:20-21;  Numbers 11:5;  Psalms 105:29;  Jeremiah 46:7-8. The Nile is not named in the New Testament As rain seldom falls in Egypt proper, the fertility of the country is entirely dependent upon the annual rise of the Nile. This usually begins in June and continues until near the end of September, the river remaining stationary for two or more weeks, and then attaining its highest level in October, when it begins to subside. The successive years of famine in the days of Joseph were doubtless due to a deficient overflow of the Nile for those years. Formerly this annual inundation turned Egypt into a vast lake, but in later times the water has been distributed by a great network of canals, from which the huge basins of cultivated land into which the canals divide the country, are supplied with water of the depth required to leave a deposit of mud to fertilize the land. The native uses his feet to regulate the flow of water into each of the squares or basins of land, and by a dexterous movement of his toes forms or removes a tiny embankment, as may be required to admit the proper flow of water, another common mode is to use the "shadoof," a bucket attached to a long pole hung on a pivot, balanced by a stone or a lump of clay at one end, and having the bucket on the other end. To this day the Nile is lined for hundreds of miles with these shadoofs, worked by men, women, and children, who lift the water out of the river to Irrigate their fields. Both these methods are believed to be very ancient, and may be alluded to by Moses in contrasting the fountains and rainfalls in Palestine with the absence of this supply in Egypt: "For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, Is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst It with thy foot as a garden of herbs."  Deuteronomy 11:10-11. The ancient Egyptians worshipped the river Nile as a god. Two of the ten plagues sent upon Pharaoh and Egypt before the departure of the Israelites were turning the water of the Nile into blood and bringing forth frogs from the river.  Exodus 7:15-25;  Exodus 8:3-7. The papyrus reeds—whence paper is designated—the flags, the lotus, and the various colored flowers formerly beautifying the banks of the river have nearly all disappeared, thus fulfilling prophecy.  Isaiah 19:6-7.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

NILE. The Greek name of the river, of uncertain derivation. The Egyptian name was Hopi , later Yer-‘o , ‘Great River,’ but the Hebrew generally designates the Nile by the plain Egyptian word for ‘river,’ Ye’ôr . The Nile was rich in fish, and the home of the crocodile and hippopotamus. It bore most of the internal traffic of Egypt; but it was pre-eminently the one source of water, and so of life and fertility, in a land which, without it, would have been desert. The White Nile sends down from the Central African lakes a steady stream, which is greatly increased in summer and autumn, when the half-dry beds of the Bahr el-Azrek and the Atbara are filled by the torrential rains annually poured on the mountains of Abyssinia. The waters of these tributaries are charged with organic matter washed down by the floods, and this is spread over the fields of Egypt by the inundation. The height of the Nile rise was measured and recorded by the Egyptians from the earliest times: on it depended almost wholly the harvest of the year, and a great excess might be as harmful as a deficiency. The rise begins about June 19, and after increasing slowly for a month the river gains rapidly till September; at the end of September it becomes stationary, but rises again, reaching its highest level about the middle of October. The crops were sown as the water retreated, and on the lower ground a second crop was obtained by artificial irrigation . Canals and embankments regulated the waters in ancient times. The water was raised for the irrigation of the fields by shadûfs , i.e. buckets hung from the end of dipping poles, and handscoops, and carried by small channels which could be opened or stopped with a little mud and cut herbage: by this means the flow was directed to particular fields or parts of fields as might be required. Water-wheels were probably introduced in Greek times. In modern days, vast dams to store the water against the time of low Nile, and steam pumps (in Lower Egypt) to raise it, have changed the aspect of high Nile and revolutionized the system of irrigation; but for the smaller operations the old methods are still practised. The Nile had seven mouths, of which the western (the Canopic) and the eastern (the Pelusiac) were the most important. The former secured most of the traffic with Greece and the islands, the latter with the PhÅ“nicians. The Pelusiac arm, on which Tahpanhes and Pi-beseth lay, would be best known to the inhabitants of Palestine. Now the ancient mouths are silted up; only a western (Rosetta branch) and a central one (Damietta branch) survive. The worship of the Nile-god must have been prominent in popular festivals, but has not left much monumental trace. The Nile was not one of the great gods, and his figure appears chiefly as emblematic of the river, e.g . bringing offerings to the gods; the figure is that of an obese man with water-plants on his head.

The Egyptians seem to have imagined a connexion of the Nile southwards with the Indian Ocean, and the priests taught the absurd notion that it gushed out north and south from two springs at the First Cataract. They also fancied a Nile in heaven producing rain, and another underground feeding the springs. The ‘seven lean years’ in Genesis is paralleled by an Egyptian tradition of a much earlier seven years’ famine under the 3rd Dyn., and years of famine due to insufficient rise of the Nile are referred to in more than one hieroglyphic text.

F. Ll. Griffith.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

the river of Egypt, whose fountain is in the Upper Ethiopia. After having watered several kingdoms, the Nile continues its course far into the kingdom of Goiam. Then it winds about again, from the east to the north. Having crossed several kingdoms and provinces, it falls into Egypt at the cataracts, which are waterfalls over steep rocks of the length of two hundred feet. At the bottom of these rocks the Nile returns to its usual pace, and thus flows through the valley of Egypt. Its channel, according to Villamont, is about a league broad. At eight miles below Grand Cairo, it is divided into two arms, which make a triangle, whose base is at the Mediterranean Sea, and which the Greeks call the Delta, because of its figure Δ . These two arms are divided into others, which discharge themselves into the Mediterranean, the distance of which from the top of the Delta is about twenty leagues. These branches of the Nile the ancients commonly reckoned to be seven. Ptolemy makes them nine, some only four, some eleven, some fourteen. Homer, Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus testify, that the ancient name of this river was Egyptus; and the latter of these writers says, that it took the name Nilus only since the time of a king of Egypt called by that name. The Greeks gave it the name of Melas; and Diodorus Siculus observes, that the most ancient name by which the Grecians have known the Nile was Oceanus. The Egyptians paid divine honours to this river, and called it Jupiter Nilus.

Very little rain ever falls in Egypt, never sufficient to fertilize the land; and but for the provision of this bountiful river, the country would be condemned to perpetual sterility. As it is, from the joint operation of the regularity of the flood, the deposit of mud from the water of the river, and the warmth of the climate, it is the most fertile country in the world; the produce exceeding all calculation. It has in consequence been, in all ages, the granary of the east; and has on more than one occasion, an instance of which is recorded in the history of Joseph, saved the neighbouring countries from starvation. It is probable, that, while in these countries, on the occasion referred to, the seven years' famine was the result of the absence of rain, in Egypt it was brought about by the inundation being withheld: and the consternation of the Egyptians, at witnessing this phenomenon for seven successive years, may easily be conceived. The origin and course of the Nile being unknown to the ancients, its stream was held, and is still held by the natives, in the greatest veneration; and its periodical overflow was viewed with mysterious wonder. But both of these are now, from the discoveries of the moderns, better understood. It is now known, that the sources, or permanent springs, of the Nile are situated in the mountains of Abyssinia, and the unexplored regions to the west and south-west of that country; and that the occasional supplies, or causes of the inundation, are the periodical rains which fall in those districts. For a correct knowledge of these facts, and of the true position of the source of that branch of the river, which has generally been considered to be the continuation of the true Nile, we are indebted to our countryman, the intrepid and indefatigable Bruce. Although the Nile, by way of eminence, has been called "the river of Egypt," it must not be confounded with another stream so denominated in Scripture, an insignificant rivulet in comparison, which falls into the Mediterranean below Gaza.

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Although the Bible mentions the Nile River mainly in relation to Egypt ( Genesis 41:17-19;  Ezekiel 29:3), the river passes through many countries, among them Ethiopia (GNB: Sudan) ( Isaiah 18:1-2). The length of the Nile is about 5,600 kilometres.

Very little rain fell in Egypt, with the result that the country depended almost entirely upon the Nile for its water supply. The fertility of its land also depended upon the Nile. Because of the silt left behind after the river’s annual flooding, otherwise barren land became usable ( Isaiah 23:3;  Isaiah 23:10;  Amos 8:8;  Amos 9:5).

Apart from the land that extended out a few kilometres on either side of the river, plus the land of the well watered delta region (together totalling less than one twentieth of Egypt’s entire land area), Egypt was a desert. In Egypt the failure of the Nile to flood was the equivalent of a drought in other countries. It ruined the farming, fishing and cotton industries, and created widespread unemployment ( Genesis 41:1-3;  Isaiah 19:5-10). Prophetic announcements of judgment on Egypt therefore often included graphic pictures of the drying up of the Nile ( Ezekiel 29:1-10;  Ezekiel 30:12;  Zechariah 10:11). It seems that God used some of the physical characteristics of the Nile Valley in bringing the plagues on Egypt during the time of Moses ( Exodus 7:14-25; Exodus 8; Exodus 9; Exodus 10; see Plague ).

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Isaiah 23:3 Jeremiah 2:18 Genesis 41:1 Exodus 1:22 Amos 8:8Egypt

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) The great river of Egypt.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

See River Of Egypt

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Copyright StatementThese files are public domain. Bibliography InformationMcClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Nile'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/n/nile.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

nı̄l ( Νεῖλος , Neı́los , meaning not certainly known; perhaps refers to the color of the water, as black or blue. This name does not occur in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or in the English translation):

I. The Nile In Physical Geography

1. Description

2. Geological Origin

3. The Making of Egypt

4. The Inundation

5. The Infiltration

II. The Nile In History

1. The Location of Temples

2. The Location of Cemeteries

3. The Damming of the Nile

4. Egyptian Famines

III. The Nile In Religion

1. The Nile as a God

2. The Nile in the Osirian Myth

3. The Celestial Nile

A river of North Africa, the great river of Egypt. The name employed in the Old Testament to designate the Nile is in the Hebrew יאר , ye'ōr , Egyptian ăūr , earlier, ătūr , usually translated "river," also occasionally "canals" (  Psalm 78:44;  Ezekiel 29:3 ff). In a general way it means all the water of Egypt. The Nile is also the principal river included in the phrase נהרי־כוּשׁ , nahărē kūsh , "rivers of Ethiopia" ( Isaiah 18:1 ). Poetically the Nile is called ים , yām , "sea" ( Job 41:31;  Nahum 3:8; probably  Isaiah 18:2 ), but this is not a name of the river. שׁיחור , shı̄ḥōr , not always written fully, has also been interpreted in a mistaken way of the Nile (see Shihor ). Likewise מצרים נהר , nahar micrayim , "brook of Egypt," a border stream in no way connected with the Nile, has sometimes been mistaken for that river. See River Of Egypt .

I. The Nile in Physical Geography.

1. Description:

The Nile is formed by the junction of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in latitude 15 degree 45' North and longitude 32 degree 45' East. The Blue Nile rises in the highlands of Abyssinia, latitude 12 degree 30' North, long. 35 degree East, and flows Northwest 850 miles to its junction with the White North. The White Nile, the principal branch of the North, rises in Victoria Nyanza, a great lake in Central Africa, a few miles North of the equator, long. 33 degree East (more exactly the Nile may be said to rise at the headwaters of the Ragera River, a small stream on the other side of the lake, 3 degree South of the equator), and flows North in a tortuous channel, 1,400 miles to its junction with the Blue Nile. From this junction-point the Niles flows North through Nubia and Egypt 1,900 miles and empties into the Mediterranean Sea, in latitude 32 degree North, through 2 mouths, the Rosetta, East of Alexandria, and the Damietta, West of Port Said. There were formerly 7 mouths scattered along a coast-line of 140 miles.

2. Geological Origin:

The Nile originated in the Tertiary period and has continued from that time to this, though by the subsidence of the land 220 ft. along the Mediterranean shore in the Pluvial times, the river was very much shortened. Later in the Pluvial times the land rose again and is still rising slowly.

3. The Making of Egypt:

Cultivable Egypt is altogether the product of the Nile, every particle of the soil having been brought down by the river from the heart of the continent and deposited along the banks and especially in the delta at the mouth of the river. The banks have risen higher and higher and extended farther and farther back by the deposit of the sediment, until the valley of arable land varies in width in most parts from 3 or 4 miles to 9 or 10 miles. The mouth of the river, after the last elevation of the land in Pluvial times, was at first not far from the latitude of Cairo. From this point northward the river has built up a delta of 140 miles on each side, over which it spreads itself and empties into the sea through its many mouths.

4. The Inundation:

The, watering of Egypt by the inundation from the Nile is the most striking feature of the physical character of that land, and one of the most interesting and remarkable physical phenomena in the world. The inundation is produced by the combination of an indirect and a direct cause. The indirect cause is the rain and melting snow on the equatorial mountains in Central Africa, which maintains steadily a great volume of water in the White Nile. The direct cause is torrential rains in the highlands of Abyssinia which send down the Blue Nile a sudden great increase in the volume of water. The inundation has two periods each year. The first begins about July 15 and continues until near the end of September. After a slight recession, the river again rises early in October in the great inundation. High Nile is in October, 25 to 30 ft., low Nile in June, about 12 1/2 ft. The Nilometer for recording the height of the water of inundation dates from very early times. Old Nilometers are found still in situ at Edfu and Assuan. The watering and fertilizing of the land is the immediate effect of the inundation; its ultimate result is that making of Egypt which is still in progress. The settling of the sediment from the water upon the land has raised the surface of the valley about 1 ft. in 300 to 400 years, about 9 to 10 ft. near Cairo since the beginning of the early great temples. The deposit varies greatly at other places. As the deposit of sediment has been upon the bottom of the river, as well as upon the surface of the land, though more slowly, on account of the swiftness of the current, the river also has been lifted up, and thus the inundation has extended farther and farther to the East, and the West, as the level of the valley would permit, depositing the sediment and thus making the cultivable land wider, as well as the soil deeper, year by year. At Heliopolis, a little North of Cairo, this extension to the East has been 3 to 4 miles since the building of the great temple there.

At Luxor, about 350 miles farther up the river, where the approach toward the mountains is much steeper, the extension of the good soil to the East and the West is inconsiderable.

5. The Infiltration:

The ancient Egyptians were right in calling all the waters of Egypt the Nile, for wherever water is obtained by digging it is simply the Nile percolating through the porous soil. This percolation is called the infiltration of the Nile. It always extends as far on either side of the Nile as the level of the water in the river at the time will permit. This infiltration, next to the inundation, is the most important physical phenomenon in Egypt. By means of it much of the irrigation of the land during the dry season is carried on from wells. It has had its influence also in the political and religious changes of the country (compare below).

II. The Nile in History.

1. The Location of Temples:

Some of the early temples were located near the Nile, probably because of the deification of the river. The rising of the surface of the land, and at the same time of the bed of the river, from the inundation lifted both Egypt and its great river, but left the temples down at the old level. In time the infiltration of the river from its new higher level reached farther and farther and rose to a higher level until the floor of these old temples was under water even at the time of lowest Nile, and then gods and goddesses, priests and ceremonial all were driven out. At least two of the greatest temples and most sacred places, Heliopolis and Memphis, had to be abandoned. Probably this fact had as much to do with the downfall of Egypt's religion, as its political disasters and the actual destruction of its temples by eastern invaders. Nature's God had driven out the gods of Nature.

2. The Location of Cemeteries:

Some prehistoric burials are found on the higher ground, as at Kefr ‛Amar . A thousand years of history would be quite sufficient to teach Egyptians that the Nile was still making Egypt. Thenceforth, cemeteries were located at the mountains on the eastern and the western boundaries of the valley. Here they continue to this day, for the most part still entirely above the waters of the inundation - and usually above the reach of the infiltration.

3. The Damming of the Nile:

The widening of the cultivable land by means of long canals which carried the water from far up the river to levels higher than that of the inundation, farther down the river was practiced from very early times. The substitution of dams for long canals was reserved for modern engineering skill. Three great dams have been made: the first a little Nile of Cairo, the greatest at Assuan, and the last near Asyut.

4. Egyptian Famines:

Famines in Egypt are always due to failure in the quantity of the waters of inundation. Great famines have not been frequent. The cause of the failure in the water of inundation is now believed to be not so much a lack of the water of inundation from the Blue Nile as the choking of the channel of the White Nile in the great marsh land of the Sudan by the sud, a kind of sedge, sometimes becoming such a tangled mass as to close the channel and impede the flow of the regular volume of water so that the freshet in the Blue Nile causes but little inundation at the usual time, and during the rest of the year the Nile is so low from the same cause that good irrigation by canals and wells is impossible. A channel through the sud is now kept open by the Egyptian government.

III. The Nile in Religion.

One of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon was Hapi, the Nile. In early times it divided the honors with Ra, the sun-god. No wonder it was so.

1. The Nile as a God:

If the Egyptians set out to worship Nature-gods at all, surely then the sun and the Nile first.

2. The Nile in Osirian Myth:

The origin of the Osirian myth is still much discussed. Very much evidence, perhaps conclusive evidence, can be adduced to prove that it rose originally from the Nile; that Osiris was first of all the Nile, then the water of the Nile, then the soil, the product of the waters of the Nile, and then Egypt, the Nile and all that it produced.

3. The Celestial Nile:

Egypt was the Egyptian's little world, and Egypt was the Nile. It was thus quite natural for the Egyptians in considering the celestial world to image it in likeness of their own world with a celestial Nile flowing through it. It is so represented in the mythology, but the conception of the heavens is vague.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The longest river of Africa, and one of the most noted in the world's history; the Shimiyu, Isanga, and other streams which flow into Victoria Nyanza from the S. are regarded as its ultimate head-waters; from Victoria Nyanza, the Victoria Nile or Somerset River holds a north-westerly course to Albert Nyanza, whence it issues under the name of the Bahr-el-Jebel, swelled by the waters of the Semliki from Albert Edward Nyanza; about 650 m. N. it is joined by the Bahr-el-Ghazal from the W., and bending to the E., now under the name White Nile, receives on that side the Sobat, and as a sluggish navigable stream flows past Fashoda on to Khartoum, where it is met by the Bahr-al-Azrak or Blue Nile; 200 m. lower it receives the Atbara or Black Nile. Through Egypt the river's course is confined to a valley some 10 m. broad, which owes its great fertility to the alluvial deposits left by the river during it annual overflow (July to October, caused by seasonal rains in Abyssinia, &c.). From Khartoum to Assouan occur the cataracts; below this the stream is navigable. A few miles N. of Cairo begins the delta which lies within the Rosetta and Damietta—two main branches of the divided river—and is some 150 m. broad at its base. From Victoria Nyanza to the coast the river measures about 3400 m.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Nile [EGYPT]