a proselyte, Philip would not have baptized him, since the good news had not yet begun to be extended to the uncircumcised Gentiles.

Ethiopia (Cush) is one of the lands among which the Jewish exiles were scattered after the Babylonian conquest of Judah. (Isa. 11:11) Hence, this Ethiopian official may have had association with Jewish persons in his area or perhaps in Egypt, where many Jews resided. His copy of the scroll of Isaiah was likely a copy of the Greek Septuagint translation, originally made in Alexandria, Egypt. Since the Ethiopian kingdom had become partly Hellenized from the time of Ptolemy II (309-246 B.C.E.), this official’s being able to read the Greek language would not be unusual. His becoming a Jewish proselyte and his subsequent conversion to Christianity were in fulfillment of Psalm 68:31.

ETHIOPIAN LANGUAGE

The original language of Ethiopia is undetermined; by the close of the eighth century B.C.E. Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was being used for official Ethiopian inscriptions. A native language and script called Meroitic is known from the century prior to the start of the Common Era and for some centuries thereafter. The language called Ethiopic was the vernacular language during the Common Era up until the fourteenth century. It is of Semitic origin as is the present-day language of modern Ethiopia called Amharic. The Encyclopedia Americana (1956 ed., Vol. 10, p. 547) states that during the time of Roman control there was a great influx of Arabian peoples into this region and that the population continued to be mainly Arabian from the fourth century C.E. on.

ETH-KAZIN

(Eth-kaʹzin).

A site marking the boundary of Zebulun. (Josh. 19:10, 13) Though its exact location is today unknown, some tentatively identify it with modern Kefr Kenna about thirteen and a half miles (21.7 kilometers) W of the Sea of Galilee.

ETHNAN

(Ethʹnan) [gift, hire].

A son of Ashhur by his wife Helah. Ethnan was of the tribe of Judah and of the family of Hezron.—1 Chron. 2:3-5, 9, 24; 4:5, 7.

ETHNI

(Ethʹni) [gift, hire].

A descendant of Levi through his son Gershom; the son of Zerah and the forefather of the musician Asaph.—1 Chron. 6:39-43.

EUBULUS

(Eu·buʹlus) [well-advised, prudent].

One of the Christian brothers in Rome at the time of the apostle Paul’s last imprisonment and who is mentioned as sending greetings to Timothy.—2 Tim. 4:21.

EUNICE

(Euʹnice) [blessed with victory; good victory].

A believing Jewess, the daughter of Lois. She was the wife of an unbelieving Greek and the mother of Timothy. (Acts 16:1) Very likely the apostle Paul met Eunice at Lystra in Asia Minor on his first missionary tour, and it was then, as a result of his preaching, that she and her mother Lois became Christians. (Acts 14:4-18) The faith of Eunice was “without any hypocrisy.” (2 Tim. 1:5) Although married to a pagan husband, she was exemplary in teaching her son Timothy the “holy writings” from his “infancy” and, upon becoming a Christian, she doubtless instructed him accordingly. (2 Tim. 3:15) Since Eunice’s husband was a Greek, Timothy’s parents had not had him circumcised.—Acts 16:3.

EUNUCH

The Hebrew word sa·risʹ and the Greek word eu·nouʹkhos apply, when used in a literal sense, to a human male who has been castrated. Such were appointed in royal courts as attendants or caretakers of the queen, the harem and the women. (Esther 2:3, 12-15; 4:4-6, 9) Due to their closeness to the king’s household, eunuchs of ability often rose to high rank. In a broad sense the term also denoted any official assigned to duties in the court of the king, not indicating that these men were literal eunuchs.

Under the Law covenant, a eunuch was not allowed to become part of the congregation of God’s people. (Deut. 23:1) There is, accordingly, no indication that any of the Israelites or alien residents among them were made into eunuchs for service in the palace of Israelite kings. Under the Law, slaves were to be circumcised, not castrated. However, it was the custom of Eastern pagan nations to make eunuchs out of some of the children taken captive in war.

The court official in charge of the treasury of the queen of Ethiopia and to whom Philip preached is called a eunuch. He was a proselyte to the Jewish religion who had come to Jerusalem to worship God. But since a castrated person was not accepted into the congregation of Israel under the Law, the term eu·nouʹkhos would apply here not literally, but in its sense of “court official.” (Acts 8:26-39; Deut. 23:1) Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian who rescued the prophet Jeremiah from imprisonment in a cistern, was a eunuch in the court of King Zedekiah. It would appear that the term here applies in the frequent sense of officer also. Ebed-melech seems to have been a man of authority. He appealed directly to King Zedekiah in Jeremiah’s behalf and was given command over thirty men for the rescue operation.—Jer. 38:7-13.

Jehovah comfortingly foretold the time when eunuchs would be accepted by him as his servants and, if obedient, would have a name better than sons and daughters. With the abolition of the Law by Jesus Christ, all persons exercising faith, regardless of their former status or condition, could become spiritual sons of God. Fleshly distinctions were removed.—Isa. 56:4, 5; John 1:12; 1 Cor. 7:24; 2 Cor. 5:16.

Jesus Christ spoke of three classes of eunuchs at Matthew 19:12, saying: “For there are eunuchs that were born such from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs that were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs that have made themselves eunuchs on account of the kingdom of the heavens. Let him that can make room for it make room for it.” Those who are said to have “made themselves eunuchs” because of the kingdom are those who exercise self-control so as to apply themselves to the service of God. The apostle Paul recommends this as the “better” course for Christians who do not become “inflamed with passion.” These, he said, could serve the Lord more constantly “without distraction.” (1 Cor. 7:9, 29-38) Such “eunuchs” are not persons who have physically castrated themselves or have been emasculated; instead, these persons voluntarily remain in a state of singleness. No vow of celibacy is recommended by the Bible, and “forbidding to marry” is condemned as one of the marks of the apostasy. In fact, some of the apostles were married men.—1 Tim. 4:1-3; 1 Cor. 9:5; Matt. 8:14; Mark 1:30; Luke 4:38; see COURT OFFICIAL.

EUODIA

(Eu·oʹdi·a) [good journey, success].

A woman in the Christian congregation at Philippi who had fought side by side with the apostle Paul and others “in the good news.” Euodia was apparently having some difficulty in resolving a problem that had arisen between her and Syntyche, and Paul admonished these two Christian women “to be of the same mind in the Lord.”—Phil. 4:2, 3.

EUPHRATES

(Eu·phraʹtes) [Heb., P^erathʹ, from root meaning “to break forth”; Assyro-Babylonian, Purattu; Old Persian, Ufratu].

The longest and most important river of SW Asia, called the Firat in Arabic, a name closely resembling the Hebrew P^erath’. It is first mentioned at Genesis 2:14 as one of the four rivers once having had their source in Eden.

BOUNDARY OF ISRAEL’S ASSIGNED TERRITORY

In God’s statement to Abraham he covenanted to give Abraham’s seed the land “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Gen. 15:18) This promise was restated to the nation of Israel. (Ex. 23:31; Deut. 1:7, 8; 11:24; Josh. 1:4) First Chronicles 5:9 states that certain descendants of Reuben in the period prior to David’s reign extended their dwelling “as far as where one enters the wilderness at the river Euphrates.” However, since the Euphrates is some five hundred miles (804 kilometers) distant, when traveling “east of Gilead” (1 Chron. 5:10), this may mean simply that the Reubenites extended their territory E of Gilead into the edge of the Syrian Desert, which desert continues over to the Euphrates. (RS reads, “as far as the entrance of the desert this side of the Euphrates”; JB, “to the beginning of the desert that ends at the river Euphrates.”) It thus appears that Jehovah’s promise was first fully realized during the reigns of David and Solomon when the boundaries of Israel’s dominion extended to include the Aramaean kingdom of Zobah and thus reached to the banks of the Euphrates, evidently along the section traversing northern Syria. (2 Sam. 8:3; 1 Ki. 4:21; 1 Chron. 18:3-8; 2 Chron. 9:26) Due to its preeminence, it was often designated simply as “the River.”—Josh. 24:2, 15; Ps. 72:8.

SOURCES AND COURSE

Some 1,780 miles (2,864 kilometers) in length, the Euphrates has two principal sources, One, known as the Kara Su, takes its rise in NE Turkey about sixty miles (97 kilometers) from the SE corner of the Black Sea. The other, the Murat Suyu, has its headwaters originating about midway between Lake Van and Mount Ararat. Approximately halfway between the two rivers lies the valley of the Araxes River, thought by some to be related to the Gihon River of Genesis 2:13. The courses of the Kara Su and the Murat Suyu run fairly parallel in a westerly direction until they unite near the city of Keban, at an elevation of about 2,000 feet (610 meters) above sea level.

From this point on, the combined streams form the Euphrates proper. Having already traversed some 400 miles (644 kilometers) of mountainous terrain from the initial headwaters of the Murat Suyu, the river now turns southward for a distance of some 300 miles (483 kilometers), during which its flow is broken by various cataracts and rapids, until it finally emerges on the Syrian plain at a point N of the site of ancient Carchemish (modern Jerablus).

Ford at Carchemish

Carchemish guarded the principal fording place used by armies or caravans crossing from N Mesopotamia into N Syria. Carchemish was a major fortress city that later came under Assyrian control, (Isa. 10:5-9) Pharaoh Nechoh took the city about 629 B.C.E., engaging Josiah’s army at Megiddo and killing that Judean king while on the way there. (2 Ki. 23:29; 2 Chron. 35:20-24) Four years later (625 B.C.E.) Nebuchadnezzar’s troops crossed the Euphrates and defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish, initiating the complete decline of any domination by Egypt in Syria-Palestine.—Jer. 46:2, 6, 10; 2 Ki. 24:7.

From Carchemish to the Persian Gulf

The Euphrates by Carchemish is only about one hundred miles (161 kilometers) from the Mediterranean Sea; however, the river thereafter makes a turn and takes a SE course, heading for the Persian Gulf, over seven hundred miles (1,126 kilometers) distant. The “middle” section of the Euphrates reaches from Carchemish down to the city of Hit, in the region of bitumen pits, its flow being strengthened by the waters of the Belikh and Khabur Rivers. Below Hit the river courses through the fertile Mesopotamian plain, and, some fifty miles (81 kilometers) below Hit, in the neighborhood of Baghdad, it draws within twenty-five miles (40 kilometers) of the Tigris River. In this lower section of the Euphrates, the river dissipates itself in the extensive marshes and in the ruined canals, and its flow becomes sluggish.

The Euphrates and the Tigris finally unite near Basra and from this junction to the Persian Gulf the stream is known as the Shatt-el-Arab. Pliny and other ancient historians stated that the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris. It is generally believed that the silt deposited by the two rivers has built up the delta region at the head of the Persian Gulf and that the original coastline extended much farther N, perhaps reaching as far as the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham’s early home.

COMMERCIAL THOROUGHFARE

The Euphrates from ancient times has been a highway of commerce in the “Fertile Crescent.” Its waters are navigable for small vessels for some 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) from the sea. Inflated goatskins and little round basket-shaped boats formed of reeds and coated with bitumen are still employed by some today as they were in centuries past. The Euphrates’ waters reach their lowest point in September and then steadily rise until May, when their normal crest is reached. Due to the melting snows, spring floods occur. The annual overflowing of both the Euphrates and the Tigris doubtless is the basis of Isaiah’s description of Babylonia as “the wilderness of the sea.” (Isa. 21:1, 2) This flooding was controlled in ancient times by dikes and sluices that diverted the waters into irrigation canals and into catch basins. These canals formed an irrigation network between the Euphrates and the Tigris that ensured productiveness for most of lower Babylonia. Over the centuries the canals generally have become blocked up and clogged, with resultant agricultural deterioration; the accumulation of salts in the soil due to the irrigation waters also contributed to the gradual ruin of the once-fertile valley.

MAJOR CITIES

Along the Euphrates’ banks lay many ancient cities, including Ur, Erech, Kish and Babylon. The river’s course has apparently shifted somewhat to the W so that most of the ancient sites now lie several miles to the E.

The great city of Babylon was originally built so that it straddled the Euphrates, and the river’s waters were used to form a broad deep moat encircling the city and also to form a network of canals within the city walls. At the time of Babylon’s fall in 539 B.C.E., Cyrus diverted the waters of the Euphrates so that his troops could march through the riverbed into the unsuspecting city. Thus, in a figurative sense the waters of the Euphrates were ‘dried up.’ (Isa. 44:27, 28; 45:1) In symbol, the same thing is prophesied to result from the outpouring of the sixth angel’s “bowl” on “the great river Euphrates,” as described at Revelation 16:12. The following chapter describes the destruction of symbolic “Babylon the Great,” which is said to ‘sit on many waters,’ these representing “peoples and crowds and nations and tongues.”—Rev. 17:1, 5, 15-18.

A FRONTIER; VISITED BY JEREMIAH

As the Euphrates River served as the northern frontier of the disputed region of Palestine and Syria, over which Egypt and Babylon fought, so in the time of the Persian Empire it served to divide the East from the West, as indicated by the expression “beyond the River.” (Ezra 4:10, 11; 5:3; 6:6; Neh. 2:7) In time the Euphrates also formed the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire.

The text at Jeremiah 13:1-7 has been the subject of some discussion inasmuch as a trip by Jeremiah from Jerusalem to the river Euphrates, even at its nearest point some distance S of Carchemish, would represent a trip of over 300 miles (483 kilometers) each way, and the text indicates that he possibly made the trip twice (though the intervening time is not stated). A translation by the Jewish Publication Society here simply transliterates the Hebrew word as “Perath,” and some suggest that the reference is