Arbela (Hastings' Dictionary)

The Syrian army under Bacchidos, wliicli came from the N. upon Jerus. B.C. Ifil, is described liy the Gr. of 1 Mac 9' as proceeding ' by the way tlmt leadeth to GUgal, and encamping before Mesaloth, which is in Arbela (^v 'Ap^iiXois) ; fat poB8e.ssion of it and destroyed much people.' 'he sites represented by all the.se names are disputed, and there are several alternatives for the line of the Sj'rian march.

The most natural direction for Bacchidcs to take was along the coast, and up the vale of Aijalon. On this route there lay a Gilgal, the present Jiljuliyeh, on tlie plain of Sliaron, but no trace is now discover- able of MfffoXiiS or of 'A/)/3i)Xa. Jos. {Ant. XII. xi. 1) supio.scs that they came through Galilee, which he reads instead of Gilgal.

On this route •tands the modem Irbid, the identity of which Dame wit'n Irbil or Arbela is proved by the medi- a-val Arab gco^rraphers (Nasir-i-Khusran calls it Irbil, but Yakut and others Irbid ; cf. Reland, Pal. 358) ; and Robinson {Illi ii. 398) suggesU that Mi<ra\JiO or MaiiraXuifl stands for nrtpj, a term he thinks appropriate to the precipices, honey-combed with caves, that always made Arbela a place of strategic importance. But this identification is doubtful.

Again, Bacchides, having passed through Galilee, might have approached Jems, across Es- draelon by the trunk road through Samaria, a direction which is called in the Bk of Jth (4") the dvafidaas to Juihca. On this route there lay a strong fortress, Gilgal, the modem Jiljilia, which might well have given its name to the route ; and Ewald identifies this with the Gilgal of our passage {Hist. Eng. ed. v. 323). On the same road, much farther N.

than Gilgal, stands a Meselieh, taken by some to be the Bethulia of the Bk of Jth, and therefore a fortress that Bacchides, if advan- cing by this direction, would certainly have to reckon with ; while close to Meselieh stands Meithalftn. These two ofl'er a probable identifica- tion for iUffaXiid. The latter is said to lie if 'Ap^-/l\ois, and this form of the phrase suggests that Arbela (observe the plural) was the name, not of a to\vn, but a district. Now Eus. (Onom. art.'

Ap|3>)Xo) notes the name as existing in his time in Esdraelon, 94 miles from Lejjun, a position which suits the entrances from Esdraelon upon Meselieh and Meithalfln. It ia just possible, therefore, that 'Ap^tjXa. was the name 01 the whole district. A fourth alternative for the route of Bacchides was through GUead, which name is read for Gilgal by the Syr. of 1 Mac 9'. In the E.

of Gilead there lies to-day a point of strategic importance known as Irbid ; but there is neither a Mesaloth nor a Gilgal, unless the latter be taken to be the Gilgal by Jericho, which Bacchides might have passed had he come upon Judiea through Gilead. The Gilead route, however, is much the least probable of the four suggested. See Bbth-Arbel and GlL- QAL. G. A. Smith. ARBITE Cs-ixn).— The LXX (2 S 23») apparently reads '31V^ (the Archite), cf.

Jos 16' and ' liusliai the Archite,' 2 S 15^' ; but a place 'Arab, in the S. of Judah, is mentioned Jos 15". In the parallel passage 1 Ch 11" we find ' the son of Ezbai ' (•jiN-ii), a reading which is supported by several MS'S of the LXX 2 S I.e. {vl6t toO 'Aafii), and which ia probably correct. J. F. Stennino. ARBONAI CAppwyis, Jth 2«).— A torrent appar- ently near Cilicia.

It cannot be represented by the modem Nahr Ibrahim, since the ancient name of that river was the Adonis ; nor does the latter answer to the term ' torrent ' {xtliuifipos) applied to the Arbonai. C. K. CONDER.