Difference between revisions of "Eleph"

<p> (Hebrews with the art. ha-Eleph, הָאֶלֶ, Vulg. ''Eleph),'' one of the second group of towns allotted to Benjamin, and named between [[Zelah]] and [[Jerusalem]] (&nbsp;Joshua 18:28). It is possibly the ruined site marked as ''Katamon'' on [[Van]] de Velde's "Map of the environs of Jerusalem," about one mile S.W. of Jerusalem. The Sept. unites the preceding name with this, under the compound form Σηλαλέφ (Vat. MS. Σελεκάν ), and accordingly assigns only thirteen (δεκατρεῖς ) cities to this group. [[Eusebius]] and [[Jerome]] (in their Onomasticon, s.v.) mention [[Sela]] (Σελά, φυλῆς Βενιαμίν ) as distinct from Eleph. The [[Peshito]] strangely renders the name as ''Gebira.'' From the occasional use of אל in the ''Bucolic'' sense of "ox," it has been conjectured that "Eleph and its villages" was a pastoral district. The extremely frequent numerical sense, however, of אל, ''A Thousand,'' points rather to ''The Populousness'' of these towns, which lay in the neighborhood of [[Jebus]] or Jerusalem. Schultens (Proverbs Solom. 2:17) refers to the Arabic alaph, "union," in illustration of both the numerical and the domestic sense of the Hebrews root. (See further Meier, Hebrews W. w. b. page 379.) Simonis (in his Oonomasticon, page 141) refers to the name of the Cilician town Μυρίανδρος in illustration, and to &nbsp;Deuteronomy 1:11; &nbsp;Psalms 91:7, etc., for an indefinite use of אל, to designate a great multitude. Furst, in his Hebraisches Worterb. (1:91, 98), finds in &nbsp;Zechariah 9:7 another mention of our town Eleph, under the form אִלּוּ or אִלֻּ, ''Alluph;'' which, like ''Jebusi,'' he makes a frontier city belonging to [[Benjamin]] and Judah. He quotes from Jephet (or Jefet ben-Ali), a [[Jewish]] commentator who lived at Jerusalem in the 10th century, a statement that the words of &nbsp;Joshua 18:28; &nbsp;Joshua 18:6 לֶ הִיְבוּסַי צֵלִע, are, in fact, the designation of but a single city — or still less, apparently, than even that, for he further quotes Jefet as saying that in his time a [[Ward]] of Jerusalem bore that aggregate name, in which was the sepulcher of Zechariah. We reject this view as not only doing violence to the distinct enumeration of the group of cities given in &nbsp;Joshua 18:28, but as disturbing the sense of the passage in &nbsp;Zechariah 9:7 (see Hengstenberg, ''Christology,'' 3:392-394). The phrase אִלֻּ בַּיהוּדָה ''(Tribe-Prince In'' Judah), used by the prophet in this passage, is by him repeated twice (see &nbsp;Zechariah 12:5-6). In the [[Pentateuch]] and 1 Chronicles the same noun, אִלֻּ, in the plural, designates the chieftains or "dukes" of Edom. For some valuable remarks on the phrase, as indicating the ''Genuineness'' of the passages in Zechariah, see also Hengstenberg, 4:67, note. </p>

<p> '''''e´lef''''' ( האלף , <i> '''''hā''''' </i> - <i> ''''''eleph''''' </i> , "the ox"): A place in the lot of Benjamin not far from Jerusalem (&nbsp;Joshua 18:28 ). The name is omitted by Septuagint, unless, indeed, it is combined with that of Zelah. It may be identical with <i> Lifta </i> , a village W. of Jerusalem (Conder, <i> HDB </i> , under the word). Others identify <i> Lifta </i> with Nephtoah. </p>