Nooma (Hastings' Dictionary)

The name is a corruption of Nebo (3), Ναβού) in the parallel list of Ezr 10*. NOPH (3, Μέμφις, Memphis) is named in Is 1915 with Zoan, in Jer 215 with Tahpanhes, 441 with Migdol and Tahpanhes, cf. 46%, and in Ezk 3015. 16 with other cities as representative of Eaypt. Hos 9° gives Moph (nb, Μέμφις, Memphis). It is clear that as early as the LXX it was regarded as the Hebrew name for Memphis. The early Egyptian name for this city was Mn-n/fr, Stele of P’nhy, 87.

This would be heard as Mén-niifér, and later as Mén-niife, thence Ménft. The cnet ee in the time of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal already give Mimpi, the Babylonian chronicle Membi (time of Darius). The Coptic forms Mem/i, Men/i, and the Arabic Menf show this pronunciation to have been native. The Hebrew transformation may have arisen from dropping the men, the πῆ δ is well preserved in Noph ἴοι another explanation see art. MEMPHIS], and Moph only shows the same change as in Memfi.

That Memphis took such a rominent position in Egypt is confirmed by Esar- | PEERS who calls it the capital of Tirhakah, and * Trench (On AV of NT, later meanings of the word been noisome in Old noisome in modern. ishes the earlier and at a tiger would have R 47) distin, y saying English, a skunk or δ polecat would be NOSE, NOSTRILS later speaks of it as the residence of Necho along with Sais. Plutarch’s derivation of the name (de Isid.

20) seems to rest on a confusion of the Egyptian mn and mn’i. On the other hand, an attempt to identify Noph with Napata, Tirhakah’s Ethiopian capital, is hopeless. For the history of Noph see MEMPHIS. LiTzRaTURE.—Meyer, Gesch. 42gyp. p. 336 ; Steindorff, Beir. Asayr. i. p. 694. *c. ἢ. W. JouNs. NOPHAH (n>; Vulg. Nophe), mentioned only in Nu 21”, by some identified with Nobah of Jg 8" [see NoBAH]. If this be allowed, the remainder of the verse must be translated as Syr.

‘which is oe the desert’ (midhbar), and the Medeba of e MT, AV, RV disappears. Another suggested translation is ‘we have Vaid waste so that fire was kindled unto Medeba.’ The LXX [καὶ al γυναῖκες ἔτι προσεξέκαυσαν πῦρ ἐπὶ Μωάβ] translates neither Nophah nor Medeba. But the text of the verse is uncertain. See Dillmann on the passage, and G. A. Smith, HGHL p. 560 note. Cf. art. MEDEBA. A. T. CHAPMAN.