these rivers were called, and what countries they washed upon in after ages. He calls the first of the rivers Pison, the second Gihon, the third Hiddekel, and the fourth Euphrates." He tells us of the first river, that it compasseth the whole land of Havilah," a country noted for its gold and precious stones; of the second, that it compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia, or Cush; of the third, that it runs East into Assyria; of the fourth, that it is the Euphrates. These names of the rivers here mentioned by Moses, three of them at least, are not, that I know of, mentioned any where by profane geographers; but the most ancient of these are mere moderns, comparatively speaking, with regard to the ancient scripture geography. The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus mentions both Pison and Gihon ;' and hints, that both were rivers, which at particular seasons of the year abounded in their flow of waters," and as not unworthy of being named with the Tigris and Euphrates ;* therefore we may think that in his day

m Gen. ii. 11-14. Moses having told us that the garden was watered by a river from four heads; proceeds here to make, as it were, a new terrar of it, by giving it streams, and the countries they washed upon, those names by which they were called after the flood, &c.

The word we translate Ethiopia, is Cush in the Hebrew. Gen. ii. 13. See Connect.

4 Gen. ii. 14.

• Vide quæ post.

u Ibid.

Sac. et Proph. Hist. b. iii.

с

b

e

they were noted, and in no wise inconsiderable streams. The Pison, Moses tells us, encompassed the whole land of Havilah ; a country well known by this name from after Abraham's day; and in the times of Saul; although not thus called in the antediluvian world; for it must have been thus denominated from its having been planted after the flood, by Havilab, one of the sons of Joktan; or perhaps originally by Havilah, a son of Cush. We can find no more of Gihon, than that it compassed the whole land of Ethiopia, or land of Cush.d The country called the land of Cush, was what the sons of Cush first planted, most probably Babylonia ;f undoubtedly not called the land of Cush, until after the flood, when Cush, the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah, had been an inhabitant of it. The river Hiddekel was known to Daniel; it was a great river in his days, and one of the visions he was made to him in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, upon its banks. The fourth river of Moses' Eden was the Perath, or Euphrates, a river so known as to want only to be named, to be sufficiently distinguished from all others, It was called, by way of eminence, The Great River, in Abraham's days;' and so in like manner by Moses at the exit out of Egypt. It is well known throughout

h

saw,

y Gen. ii. ubi sup.

a 1 Sam. xv. 7.

Ver. 7. See Connect. b. iii.

e Gen. x. 7. See Connect. vol. i. b. iii.

Dan. x. 4.

i Gen. xv. 18.

z Gen. xxy. 18.

b Gen. x. 29.

d Gen. ii. ubi sup.

f Ibid.

h Gen. ii. 14.

k Deut. i. 7.

the scriptures by the same name;' and the heathen geographers are all very full in their accounts of it." In this manner, therefore, Moses describes the situation of the garden of Eden, not as if he had thought the flood had washed it away, so that the place of it could no where be found; but he remarks what names the rivers of it had from after the times of the sons of Noah, what countries they bounded; and he so remarkably observes, that it had been situate in the neighbourhood of the most known river in the world, the river Euphrates that it must be evident, he had no thought of placing it in some obscure corner, which surely he would have done, if he had intended a mere fiction. And I apprehend, considering him as describing a real place, that he would have added more, if he had thought what he wrote was not clear enough to leave no doubts, at the time he wrote, concerning the situation which he described,

:

III. The site of the garden of Eden, as Moses describes it, seems to have been well known in the world, both before, and in, and after Moses' time. The scriptures are generally concise; every part is confined to the matter it treats of; therefore the garden of Eden being situate beyond the Euphrates, and near the river, upon whose banks Daniel was, in his captivity at Babylon. But the history of the bible, from after Abra

1 The reader may find it thus named in all parts of the Old

Testament.

m Vide Strab. Geogr. lib. 11. Plinii Nat. Hist. lib. 5. c. 24. lib. 6. c. 9, &c.