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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Three — Paradise

ON THE SECOND RIVER, GEHON

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ON THE SECOND RIVER, GEHON.1

DE SECUNDO FLUMINE GEHON.

GENESIS 2, verse 13. — And the name of the second river is Gehon: that is it which compasses all the land of Ethiopia.2

GENES. 2. VERS. 13. — Et nomen fluvii secundi, Gehon: ipse est qui circumit omnem terram Aethiopiae.

NULLUS est fere interpretum (tanta in hoc est omnium consensio) qui non pro certo habeat hoc nomine גיחון Gehon significatum esse a Mose Nilum: ipse enim est qui peragrat terram Aethiopiae cui dominatur Pretiosus Ioannes (vulgo corrupte dicitur Prete Giovan). Nilum putat Plinius nasci in Mauritania; Lucanus cecinit incertam et incompertam esse eius originem. Sed hoc tempore, ut alia multa comperta sunt veteribus incognita, sic etiam deprehensa sunt primordia Nili ex amplissimis paludibus prope montes lunae, non procul celebri promontorio Bonae spei, ubi extremum est totius terrae continentis secundum latitudinem versus Austrum. Epiphanius in Ancorato, et in Epistola ad Ioannem Hierosolymitanum, non solum affirmat Gehon esse Nilum, sed contendit hoc tradi in Scriptura, quae apud Hieremiam c. 2 sic habet, Quid tibi vis in via Aegypti, ut bibas aquam turbidam? pro quo Septuaginta habent, Ut bibas aquam Gehon? Loquitur autem eo loco Hieremias de aqua Nili. Sed profecto Hebraice ibi non est vox Gehon quae hic ponitur, sed est alia vox, videlicet שיחור Sichor, quae significat nigrum seu turbidum, quo epitheto etiam a Graecis appellatur Nilus (dicitur enim Melas, hoc est Niger); et ipsa Aegyptus vocatur Melanobolos, ut ita vertam Nigrigleba: Nilus enim aquas vehit multo limo turbidas. Quare nescio cur LXX pro Sichor verterint Gehon, nisi forte postea corrupta sit eorum translatio.
There is hardly any of the interpreters (so great in this is the consensus of all) who does not hold for certain that by this name גיחון Gehon Moses signified the Nile: for it is the one which traverses the land of Ethiopia, over which Prester John rules (commonly called, corruptly, Prete Giovan). Pliny thinks the Nile rises in Mauritania; Lucan sang that its origin was uncertain and undiscovered. But in this age, as many other things unknown to the ancients have been discovered, so too the sources of the Nile have been found, from the most ample marshes near the Mountains of the Moon, not far from the celebrated promontory of Good Hope, where is the extremity of the whole continent of the earth, according to latitude, toward the South. Epiphanius, in the Ancoratus, and in his Epistle to John of Jerusalem, not only affirms that Gehon is the Nile, but contends that this is handed down in Scripture, which in Jeremiah, chapter 2, has thus: What do you want on the way of Egypt, that you may drink the turbid water? for which the Seventy have, That you may drink the water of Gehon? And Jeremiah in that place speaks of the water of the Nile. But in fact, in Hebrew there is not the word Gehon which is put here, but there is another word, namely שיחור Sichor, which signifies black or turbid—by which epithet the Nile is also called by the Greeks (for it is called Melas, that is, Black); and Egypt itself is called Melanobolos—as I would so render it, Black-soiled: for the Nile carries waters turbid with much mud. Wherefore I do not know why the Seventy translated Gehon for Sichor, unless perhaps their translation was afterward corrupted.3
SED Gehon non esse Nilum, multa et clara sunt indicia. Primo, Nilus cum Tigri et Euphrate nullam habet affinitatem et communionem: hi enim profluunt e Septentrione, ille autem aquas vehit ex Meridie, infinita propemodum distantia inter eorum primordia: exitus quoque eorum disiunctissimi sunt; nam Tigris et Euphrates in sinum Persicum aquas exonerant, Nilus vero definit in mare Mediterraneum. Postea, si Moses per Gehon significasset Nilum, volens eum declarare et notum facere Hebraeis, non dixisset Qui circumit omnem terram Aethiopiae, sed dixisset Qui peragrat et irrigat Aegyptum: Nilus enim non ex Aethiopia sed ex Aegypto notissimus erat Iudaeis, quippe qui plus ducentos annos in Aegypto versati essent. Nilus item qua permeat per Aegyptum propinquior est Tigri et Euphrati quam qua perluit Aethiopiam. Deinde, si Gehon est Nilus, cur Scriptura toties Nili mentionem faciens nusquam eo nomine eum appellat? Bis eum vocat Sichor (Isaiae cap. 23 et Hieremiae 2), nec unquam nominat eum flumen Aethiopiae, sed appellat saepissime fluvium Aegypti. Ad hoc, isti dicunt propterea Mosem memorando Euphratem non declarasse per quas terras praeterveheretur, quod Euphrates notissimus esset Hebraeis: atqui tempore Mosis multo notior erat Iudaeis Nilus quam Euphrates; ob eandem igitur causam nominando Nilum non debuisset indicare quas terras ille praeterfluat.
But that Gehon is not the Nile, there are many and clear indications. First, the Nile has no affinity and communion with the Tigris and Euphrates: for these flow from the North, but that one carries its waters from the South, the distance between their sources being almost infinite: their outlets too are most disjoined; for the Tigris and Euphrates discharge their waters into the Persian Gulf, but the Nile ends in the Mediterranean sea. Then, if Moses had signified the Nile by Gehon, wishing to declare it and make it known to the Hebrews, he would not have said Which compasses all the land of Ethiopia, but would have said Which traverses and waters Egypt: for the Nile was best known to the Jews not from Ethiopia but from Egypt, inasmuch as they had spent more than two hundred years in Egypt. The Nile likewise, where it passes through Egypt, is nearer to the Tigris and Euphrates than where it washes Ethiopia. Then, if Gehon is the Nile, why does Scripture, so often making mention of the Nile, nowhere call it by that name? It twice calls it Sichor (Isaiah chapter 23 and Jeremiah 2), and never names it the river of Ethiopia, but very often calls it the river of Egypt. To this, these men say that Moses, in mentioning the Euphrates, did not declare through what lands it was carried, because the Euphrates was best known to the Hebrews: but in the time of Moses the Nile was much better known to the Jews than the Euphrates; for the same cause, therefore, in naming the Nile he ought not to have indicated through what lands it flows.4
PRAETEREA Gehon esse Nilum argumentantur isti eo quod Moses scribat Gehon circumire Aethiopiam, quam Nilus praeterlabitur: quasi Aethiopia hoc loco a Mose nominata necessario intelligenda sit Aethiopia Meridionalis seu Occidentalis quam perluit Nilus; cum potius intelligenda sit altera Aethiopia Orientalis vicina Arabiae et Mesopotamiae. Verissime enim duas fecit Aethiopias Homerus (iudicio Strabonis lib. 1 Geographiae et Plinii libro 5 cap. 7), unam Occidentalem, alteram Orientalem. Fuisse autem Aethiopiam aliquam vicinam Palaestinae et Syriae ex multis Scripturae locis intelligi potest. Principio Madianitas vicinos Palaestinis censeri nomine Aethiopum constat argumento Sephorae uxoris Mosis, quae cum esset Madianitis (ut scriptum est in Exodo capite 2) ea tamen in libro Numerorum capite 12 appellatur Aethiopissa, Hebraice Chusitis. In Cantico etiam Habacuc ita legimus, Vidi tentoria Aethiopiae: turbabuntur pelles terrae Madian. Quo loco Aethiopes et Madianitae vel pro una gente ponuntur, vel pro gentibus inter se admodum vicinis ac finitimis; et cum nominentur tentoria et pelles eorum, non obscure indicatur eos esse quos appellant Cosmographi Arabes scenitas, sub pellibus atque tentoriis degentes, quorum regio ad Mesopotamiam pertinet. In Psalmo item 86 sic est, Ecce alienigenae et Tyrus et populus Aethiopum, hi fuerunt illic: per alienigenas, quos Septuaginta appellant Allophylos, sine dubio significantur Palaestini; quare tres gentes Palaestinorum, Tyriorum et Aethiopum tanquam confines et vicinae hoc loco a Davide memorantur. In 2 libr. Paralipomenon cap. 14 narrat Scriptura Zaram regem Aethiopum venisse adversus Iudaeos cum incredibilis multitudinis exercitu, quippe decies[...]
Moreover, these men argue that Gehon is the Nile from the fact that Moses writes that Gehon compasses Ethiopia, which the Nile flows past: as though the Ethiopia here named by Moses must necessarily be understood as the Southern or Western Ethiopia which the Nile washes; whereas rather it is to be understood as the other, Eastern Ethiopia, neighboring Arabia and Mesopotamia. For most truly Homer made two Ethiopias (by the judgment of Strabo, book 1 of the Geography, and of Pliny, book 5, chapter 7), one Western, the other Eastern. And that there was some Ethiopia neighboring Palestine and Syria can be understood from many places of Scripture. First, that the Midianites, neighbors to the Palestinians, were reckoned under the name of Ethiopians is established by the argument of Sephora, the wife of Moses, who, though she was a Midianite (as it is written in Exodus, chapter 2), is nevertheless in the book of Numbers, chapter 12, called an Ethiopian woman—in Hebrew, Chusitis. In the Canticle of Habakkuk too we read thus: I saw the tents of Ethiopia: the skins of the land of Midian shall be troubled. In which place the Ethiopians and the Midianites are put either for one nation, or for nations very near and bordering one another; and since their tents and skins are named, it is not obscurely indicated that they are those whom the Cosmographers call the tent-dwelling Arabs, living under skins and tents, whose region pertains to Mesopotamia. In Psalm 86 likewise it is thus: Behold the foreigners, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there: by the foreigners, whom the Seventy call Allophyloi, without doubt the Palestinians are signified; wherefore three nations—of the Palestinians, the Tyrians, and the Ethiopians—are here, as bordering and neighboring, recalled by David. In the second book of Paralipomenon, chapter 14, Scripture narrates that Zerah, king of the Ethiopians, came against the Jews with an army of incredible multitude, since it [contained] ten times[...]5
...[quippe] decies centena millia hominum continebat. Non est autem credibile illos venisse usque ex Aethiopia Meridionali: nam et difficillimum erat tantum exercitum per tam longinqua terrarum spatia ducere, nec ratio ulla erat cur ex tam remotis regionibus ad belligerandum cum Iudaeis proficiscerentur. His adde quod scriptum est in eiusdem libri c. 21, Suscitavit, inquit, Dominus contra Ioram spiritum Philistinorum, qui confines sunt Aethiopibus, et ascenderunt in terram Iuda et vastaverunt eam. In Psalmo item 71 tres gentes, Aethiopum, Arabum et Sabaeorum, tanquam sibi invicem propinquae et vicinae commemorantur. Sic enim est, Coram illo procident Aethiopes, etc. Reges Arabum et Saba dona adducent. Arabiam autem felicem et Sabaeorum terram Euphrati et Mesopotamiae non longe abesse certum est.
...since it contained a million men. But it is not credible that they came all the way from Southern Ethiopia: for it was both most difficult to lead so great an army through such far-off spaces of lands, nor was there any reason why they should set out from such remote regions to make war with the Jews. To these add what is written in the twenty-first chapter of the same book: The Lord, it says, stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines, who are neighbors to the Ethiopians, and they came up into the land of Judah and laid it waste. In Psalm 71 likewise, three nations—of the Ethiopians, the Arabs, and the Sabaeans—are commemorated as near and neighboring to one another. For thus it is: Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, etc. The kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts. And it is certain that Arabia Felix and the land of the Sabaeans are not far from the Euphrates and Mesopotamia.6
Ex his facile intellectu est non propterea Gehon intelligi debere Nilum, quia Moses dicat Gehon circumire terram Aethiopiae. Ergo quod supra docuimus de flumine Phison (ipsum fuisse eruptionem quandam, et ut vulgo appellant brachium seu ramum Euphratis, vel fluvium ex eo loco profluentem ubi Tigris et Euphratis iunctis aquis simul coeunt, diverso alveo et cursu terras a Mose nominatas perfluentem), quod, inquam, de Phison dictum est, idem nunc de Gehon sentiendum et dicendum existimamus. Eugubino admodum simile veri fit hunc Gehon esse eundem illum cuius mentio fit 3 lib. Reg. c. 1, cum de Salomone ungendo David haec praecipit: Ducite eum in Gehon, et ungat eum ibi Sadoc Sacerdos et Nathan Propheta in regem super Israël. Sicut igitur Euphrates attingebat terram promissionis, ceu unus de terminis eius quibus Deus eam terram determinaverat, ita Gehon aliquod Iudaeae latus attingebat, quo loco tanquam in regni finibus reges Hebraeorum ungi mos erat.
From these things it is easy to understand that Gehon ought not therefore to be understood as the Nile, because Moses says that Gehon compasses the land of Ethiopia. Therefore, what we taught above about the river Phison—that it was a certain offshoot, and, as the common people call it, a branch or arm of the Euphrates, or a river flowing from that place where the Tigris and Euphrates, their waters joined, come together, flowing through the lands named by Moses by a diverse channel and course—that, I say, which was said about Phison, the same we now think must be held and said about Gehon. To Eugubinus it seems quite like the truth that this Gehon is the same one of which mention is made in the third book of Kings, chapter 1, when David gives these orders about anointing Solomon: Bring him down to Gehon, and let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel. As, therefore, the Euphrates touched the land of promise, as one of its boundaries by which God had bounded that land, so Gehon touched some side of Judaea, in which place, as on the borders of the kingdom, it was the custom for the kings of the Hebrews to be anointed.7
SED haec futilia sunt: non enim in antiquo more Hebraeorum fuit reges eorum ungi in Gehon, quippe Saul et David non sunt illic uncti, nec post Salomonem quempiam sequentium Regum fuisse ibi unctum legimus. Chaldaeus quoque eo loco Gihon interpretatus est Siloë; idemque Rabbi Salomon et Nicolaus de Lyra senserunt. Et vero, si Gehon flumen paradisi aliquatenus attigisset terram Chanaam, Moses ipsum declarans non dixisset Qui circumit omnem terram Aethiopiae, sed dixisset Qui alluit terram Chanaam: hoc enim notius futurum erat Hebraeis. Quid quod ex ipsa Scriptura non obscure perspicitur Gihon nominatum in 3 Reg. fuisse fontem non procul Hierosolymis? Scriptum enim est in 2 Paralipomenon capite 32 Ezechiam obturavisse capita fontium qui erant extra Hierosolymam, ne Rex Assyriorum hostili exercitu petens Hierosolymam inveniret aquarum abundantiam. Extremo autem eo capite sic est, Ipse est Ezechias qui obturavit superiorem fontem aquarum Gehon, et avertit eas subter ad Occidentem urbis David. Et in capite 33, Post haec, inquit, aedificavit Manasses murum extra civitatem David ad Occidentem Gihon in convalle.
But these things are futile: for it was not in the ancient custom of the Hebrews for their kings to be anointed at Gehon, since Saul and David were not anointed there, nor do we read that, after Solomon, any of the following Kings was anointed there. The Chaldee too, in that place, interpreted Gihon as Siloah; and the same thought Rabbi Solomon and Nicholas of Lyra. And indeed, if Gehon, the river of paradise, had to some extent touched the land of Canaan, Moses, declaring it, would not have said Which compasses all the land of Ethiopia, but would have said Which washes the land of Canaan: for this would have been better known to the Hebrews. What of the fact that from Scripture itself it is not obscurely perceived that the Gihon named in the third book of Kings was a spring not far from Jerusalem? For it is written in the second book of Paralipomenon, chapter 32, that Hezekiah stopped up the heads of the springs which were outside Jerusalem, lest the King of the Assyrians, seeking Jerusalem with a hostile army, should find an abundance of waters. And at the very end of that chapter it is thus: It is Hezekiah who stopped up the upper spring of the waters of Gehon, and turned them down below to the West of the city of David. And in chapter 33: After these things, it says, Manasses built a wall outside the city of David, to the West of Gihon in the valley.8

Translator’s notes

  1. A new sub-section: On the Second River, Gehon (Gihon). The side-reference reads "GENES. 2. VERS. 13." ↩
  2. Scripture lemma: Genesis 2:13—the second river Gihon, which compasses all the land of Ethiopia (Hebrew Cush). ↩
  3. Marginal glosses: "Origo Nili. Plinius lib. 5. Lucanus libr. 10 Pharsaliae"; "Locus Hieremiae cap. 2." Almost all interpreters (so great the consensus) take **גיחון** (Gehon) to mean the **Nile**, which traverses Ethiopia, ruled by **Prester John** ("Prete Giovan"). Pliny thought the Nile rose in Mauritania, Lucan that its source was unknown; but now its source is found—in vast marshes near the **Mountains of the Moon**, near the **Cape of Good Hope**, at the continent's southern tip. **Epiphanius** (Ancoratus; Letter to John of Jerusalem) affirms Gehon = Nile from Jeremiah 2 ("to drink the turbid water," LXX "the water of Gehon"). But the Hebrew there is not *Gehon* but **שיחור** (Sichor) = "black/turbid"—the Greeks too call the Nile *Melas* ("black") and Egypt *Melanobolos* ("black-soiled"), the Nile being muddy. So Pererius wonders why the LXX rendered *Sichor* as *Gehon*, unless their translation was later corrupted. [Hebrew גיחון and שיחור verified.] ↩
  4. Marginal gloss: "Gehon fluvium fuisse Paradisi, non Nilum." Many clear signs Gehon is **not** the Nile: **(1)** the Nile has no affinity with the Tigris/Euphrates—they flow from the *north*, it from the *south*; their sources are almost infinitely apart; their outlets differ (Tigris/Euphrates → Persian Gulf, Nile → Mediterranean). **(2)** Had Moses meant the Nile, he'd have said "which waters *Egypt*," not "compasses *Ethiopia*"—the Nile being known to the Jews from Egypt (where they dwelt 200+ years). **(3)** Scripture never calls the Nile "Gehon," but twice calls it *Sichor* (Isa 23, Jer 2), and always "river of Egypt," never "river of Ethiopia." (The reply—that Moses omitted the Euphrates's lands because it was well known—backfires, since the Nile was even better known.) ↩
  5. Marginal glosses: "Duplex Aethiopia"; "Homerus. Strabo. Plinius." The Gehon=Nile party rely on Moses's "compasses Ethiopia"—but the **Ethiopia** meant is the *Eastern* one (near Arabia and Mesopotamia), not the southern/western Ethiopia the Nile washes. Homer made **two Ethiopias** (per Strabo 1 and Pliny 5.7). An Ethiopia near Palestine/Syria is shown from Scripture: the **Midianites** are called Ethiopians (Moses's wife Sephora—a Midianite in Exod 2—is "Aethiopissa," Hebrew *Chusitis*, in Num 12); Habakkuk's canticle ("tents of Ethiopia... skins of Midian") pairs Ethiopians and Midianites as neighbors (the tent-dwelling Arabs near Mesopotamia); Psalm 86[/87] names Palestine, Tyre, and Ethiopia as neighbors; and 2 Chron 14—**Zerah** the Ethiopian king came against the Jews with a vast army (a million men)... Continues onto next page (catchword "decies"). [Note: Ps 86/87 "a Davide" is printed "a Daniele"—a slip, since the Psalter is Davidic; rendered "a Davide."] ↩
  6. Zerah's army (a million men) could not have come from southern Ethiopia—too far to lead so vast a host, and no reason to war on the Jews from so remote a land. Add 2 Chron 21: "The Lord stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines, *who are neighbors to the Ethiopians*, and they came up into Judah." And Psalm 71[/72]: the **Ethiopians, Arabs, and Sabaeans** are named as mutual neighbors ("Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down... the kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts")—and Arabia Felix and the Sabaeans' land are certainly near the Euphrates and Mesopotamia. (All confirming an *Eastern* Ethiopia near Mesopotamia.) ↩
  7. Marginal glosses: "Qui fluvius fuerit Gehon"; "Locus 3 Regum cap. 1." **Verdict:** Gehon need not be the Nile just because Moses says it compasses Ethiopia. So what Pererius said of **Phison** (an offshoot/branch of the Euphrates, from where the Tigris and Euphrates join) he now holds of **Gehon** too. **Steuchus of Gubbio** finds it likely this Gehon is the one of 3 Reg 1:33, where David orders Solomon's anointing: "Bring him down to Gehon, and let Zadok and Nathan anoint him there king over Israel"—as the Euphrates bounded the Promised Land, so Gehon touched a side of Judaea, where (as on the kingdom's borders) the Hebrew kings were anointed. ↩
  8. **Pererius rejects Steuchus:** this is futile—the Hebrew kings were *not* customarily anointed at Gehon (Saul and David were not, nor any king after Solomon). The Chaldee (Targum) renders Gihon there as **Siloah**; **Rashi** (Rabbi Solomon) and **Nicholas of Lyra** agree. And had Gehon touched Canaan, Moses would have said "which washes Canaan," not "compasses Ethiopia." Moreover Scripture shows the Gihon of 3 Reg was a *spring near Jerusalem*: 2 Chron 32—Hezekiah stopped the springs outside Jerusalem against the Assyrian king ("Hezekiah stopped the upper spring of Gihon's waters and led them west of the city of David"); 2 Chron 33—"Manasses built a wall outside the city of David, west of Gihon in the valley." Breaks here (catchword "DE"; signature V3). Resume PDF 383 with the next section, "DE TERTIO FLUMINE..." (the third river, Tigris). ↩