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•ELON oak. (1.) A city of Dan (Joshua 19:43). (2.) A Hittite, father of Bashemath, Esau’s wife (Genesis 26:34). (3.) One of the sons of Zebulun (Genesis 46:14). (4.) The eleventh of the Hebrew judges. He held office for ten years (Judges 12:11, 12). He is called the Zebulonite.
•ELPARAN oak of Paran, a place on the edge of the wilderness bordering the territory of the Horites (Genesis 14:6). This was the farthest point to which Chedorlaomer’s expedition extended. It is identified with the modern desert of et-Tih. (See PARAN.)
•ELTEKEH God is its fear, a city in the tribe of Daniel It was a city of refuge and a Levitical city (Joshua 21:23). It has been identified with Beit-Likia, north-east of latrum.
•ELUL (Nehemiah 6:15), the name of the sixth month of the ecclesiastical year, and the twelfth of the civil year. It began with the new moon of our August and September, and consisted of twenty-nine days.
•ELYMAS magician or sorcerer, the Arabic name of the Jew Bar-Jesus, who withstood Paul and Barnabas in Cyprus. He was miraculously struck with blindness (Acts 13:11).
•EMBALMING the process of preserving a body by means of aromatics (Genesis 50:2, 3, 26). This art was practised by the Egyptians from the earliest times, and there brought to great perfection. This custom probably originated in the belief in the future reunion of the soul with the body. The process became more and more complicated, and to such perfection was it carried that bodies embalmed thousands of years ago are preserved to the present day in the numberless mummies that have been discovered in Egypt.
The embalming of Jacob and Joseph was according to the Egyptian custom, which was partially followed by the Jews (2 Chronicles 16:14), as
in the case of king Asa, and of our Lord (John 19:39, 40; Luke 23:56; 24:1). (See PHARAOH.)