the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Pathros
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or PATHROS ( Isaiah 11:11 , Jeremiah 44:1; Jeremiah 44:15 , Ezekiel 29:14; Ezekiel 30:14 ). The name of Upper Egypt, in Egyptian Pteres , ‘the South Land,’ comprising both the Thebaid and Middle Egypt from somewhat south of Memphis to Syene at the First Cataract. ‘ Mizraim ’ was generally limited to Lower Egypt, i.e . the Delta and some distance up the valley to include the home of Memphis. This division of Egypt was very ancient, corresponding, at least roughly, to the two kingdoms before Menes. While Lower Egypt was familiar to both Greeks and Hebrews, Upper Egypt was comparatively unknown, as witness Herodotus’ woeful Ignorance of Egypt above the Fay-yum, and Nahum’s description of No-amon (see No). Yet there is abundant evidence in papyri of an important settlement of Jews at the southernmost extremity at Syene before 525 b.c. (cf. art. Seveneh); and the passages in which Pathros is mentioned refer to Jews in the Upper Country more than half a century before that, after the destruction of Jerusalem. So also Greek and PhÅ“nician mercenaries had reached Syene, and even Abu Simhel, far south in Nubia, in the 6th or 7th cent. b.c.; soldiers and traders of many nations must have passed frequently up and down the Nile in those days, yet without giving to their fellow-countrymen at home any clear idea of the Upper Country. In Genesis 10:14 the Pathrusim are the people of Pathros. They are represented as begotten of Mizraim.
F. Ll. Griffith.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Pathros'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/pathros.html. 1909.
