The

INTERNATIONAL

STANDARD

BIBLE

ENCYCLOPEDIA

FULLY REVISED • ILLUSTRATED • IN FOUR VOLUMES

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Copyright © 1979-1988 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49503

All Rights Reserved

Publication History:

First published 1915; copyright 1915 by the Howard-Severance Company, Chicago. New and revised edition, edited by Melvin Grove Kyle, copyright 1929 by the Howard-Severance Company. Copyright renewed, 1956, by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Completely revised and reset.

Volume I: first printing, 1979

Volume II: first printing, 1982

Volume III: first printing, 1986

Volume IV: first printing, 1988

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

International standard Bible encyclopedia.

1. Bible—Dictionaries. I. Bromiley, Geoffrey William

BS440.16 1979 220.3 79-12280

ISBN 0-8028-8163-7

ISBN 0-8028-8160-2 (set)

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and used by permission.

Scripture quotations designated NEB are from the New English Bible. Copyright© The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

Photographs reproduced in this encyclopedia are used with permission from the person or institution credited in the captions. All maps and charts in this volume not otherwise credited are included in the copyright held by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Preface

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, popularly known as ISBE, has served the Church well over the past generations. Even in its revised form, however, it has naturally become dated as new work has been done in the text of Scripture and new light has been shed by continuing, and in some cases exciting, archeological discoveries. If not without some trepidation, then, the decision has been made to issue a fresh and more drastic revision of the venerable and still by no means valueless encyclopedia.

The situation in which the new edition has been prepared resembles that of the preparation of the first edition of 1915. The original preface speaks of a plethora of biblical dictionaries at that time, called forth by the remarkable advances and changes in biblical studies. The new ISBE comes on the scene when dictionaries again abound, and one can only repeat the words of our predecessors when they say that “it is in no spirit of rivalry … that ...