Bible Lexicons

מֹף pr.n. Memphis, a city of Egypt, Hosea 9:6 elsewhere called נֹף Isaiah 19:13; Jeremiah 2:16 the ruins of which, although small, are found on the western bank of the Nile, to the south of Old Cairo; called by the Copts, ⲙⲉⲛϥⲓ; in Sahidic, ⲙⲉⲛϥⲉ, also ⲙⲉⲍⲛⲟⲩϥⲓ, (in the Rosetta inscriptions, page 5, as commonly read panoë), from which forms the Hebrew name, as well as the Gr. Μέμφις, and the Arab. منف are easily explained. The etymology of the Egyptian name is thus spoken of by Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, p. 369), τὴν μὲν πόλιν Μέμφιν οἱ μὲν ὅρμον ἀγαθῶν (compare ⲙⲉⲍ full, and ⲛⲟⲩϥⲓ good) ἑρμηνεύουσιν, οἱ δʼ ὡς τάφον Ὀσίριδος (compare ⲙⲍⲁⲩ sepulchre, and ⲟⲛⲫⲓ = ευ�εργετης, an epithet of Osiris), both of which are applicable to Memphis, the sepulchre of Osiris, and the Necropolis of the Egyptians; and hence, also, the gate of the blessed, since burial was only allowed to the good. See Jablonskii Opuscc. edit. te Water, t. i. page 137, 150, 179; t. ii. page 131; Creuzeri, Commentatt. Herodot. § 11, page 105, seq.; Champollion, l’Egypte sous les Pharaons, i. page 363; my Comment. on Isa. loc. cit. [But see Thes. on this word and its hieroglyphic form, as shewn by Dr. Thomas Young.]