ssing the limits of
Eden, the river is said to have divided itself, or parted, into four
heads, i.e., arms or branches. The first branch was called Pison. This
branch "compasseth," i.e., forms the boundary along the whole length of,
"_the_ Havilah." This country is spoken of as being a tract wherein was
produced good gold, "b'dolach" (translated "bdellium") and "shoham"
(translated "onyx.") The second branch was Gihon, which is described as
similarly compassing the district of K[=u]sh. Here our A.V., by
substituting "Ethiopia" for the original "C[=u]sh," has made a gloss
rather than a translation; and this gloss has given rise to several
errors of commentators in identifying the site of Eden. The Revised
Version has corrected the error.

The third branch was Hiddekel, the _Diklatu_ of the Arabs, the Tigra of
the old Persians, and the _Tigris_ of later writers. This is said to run
eastward towards Assyria.[1] The fourth river was the Frat or Euphrates.
Observe, in passing, that the author gives no detail about the great
river Euphrates, as being well known; while he adds particulars about
the Tigris, and describes the Gihon and the Pison in some detail.

[Footnote 1: So the margin of the A. and R. Versions more correctly.]

Now it will at once strike the reader that two of these rivers are well
known to the present day. The others are not.

It is in the identification of these two, and of the districts which
they "compassed," which form the difficulties of the problem. Up till
recent times, it is remarkable what a variety of speculations have been
attempted as to the situation of Eden. Dr. Aldis Wright, the learned
author of the article "Eden" in Smith's "Biblical Dictionary," remarks:
"It would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any
subject which has so invited, and at the same time completely baffled,
conjecture, as the Garden of Eden." And in another place he thinks that
"the site of Eden will ever rank with the quadrature of the circle, and
the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy among those unsolved, and
perhaps insoluble, problems which possess so strange a fascination." It
is, however, to be remarked, (1)that all that was written before
Professor Delitzsch's researches were made known; and (2)that really a
great mass of the conjecture and speculation has been purely in the
air--undertaken without any reference to the plain terms of the text to
be interpreted. It is the extravagance of c