“the city of book(s),” but Kirjath-Sopher, “the city of scribe(s),” and Dr. W. Max Mueller has pointed out that the determinative of “writing” has been attached to the word Sopher, showing that the writer was fully acquainted with its meaning.  Kirjath-Sannah, “the city of instruction,” as it was also called, was but another way of emphasizing the fact that here was the site of a library and school such as existed in the towns of Babylonia and Assyria.  Both names, however, Kirjath-Sopher and Kirjath-Sannah, were descriptive rather than original; its proper designation seems to have been Debir, “the sanctuary,” the temple wherein its library was established, and which has caused the Egyptian author to call it a “Beth,” or “temple,” instead of a “Kirjath,” or “city.”

Like Anab and Kirjath-Sopher, Adullam and Zidiputa were also in southern Canaan.  It was in the cave of Adullam that David took refuge from the pursuit of Saul, and we learn from Shishak that Zidiputa—­or Zadiputh-el, as he calls it—­was in the south of Judah.  From hence we are suddenly transported to the northern part of Syria, and the Mohar is asked if he knows anything about Khalza in the land of Aupa.  Khalza is an Assyrian word signifying “Fortress,” and Aupa, the Ubi of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, was not far from Aleppo.  The allusion to the “bull” is obscure.

Then once more we are summoned back to Palestine.  In the annals of Thothmes III. we are told that “the brook of Qina” was to the south of Megiddo, so that the name of the district has probably survived in that of “Cana of Galilee.”  Rehob may be Rehob in Asher (Josh. xix. 28), which was near Kanah, though the name is so common in Syria as to make any identification uncertain.  Beth-sha-el, on the contrary, is Beth-el.  We first meet with the name in the geographical lists of Thothmes III., and the fact that it is Babylonian in form, Bit-sa-ili being the Babylonian equivalent of the Hebrew Beth-el, is one of many proofs that the lists were compiled from a cuneiform original.  The name of Beth-sha-el or Beth-el calls up that of Tarqa-el, which contains the name of the Hittite god Tarqu.  But where Tarqa-el was situated it is impossible to say.

Towards the end of the book reference is made to certain places which lay on the road between Egypt and Canaan.  Rapih is the Raphia of classical geography, the Rapikh of the Assyrian inscriptions, where two broken columns now mark the boundary between Egypt and Turkey.  Rehoburta is probably the Rehoboth where the herdsmen of Isaac dug a well before the patriarch moved to Beer-sheba (Gen. xxvi. 22), while in the lake of Nakhai we may have the Sirbonian lake of classical celebrity.