ARARAT (C7ioccurs nowhere in Scripture as the name of a mountain, but only as the name of a country, upon the mountains' of which tht ark rested during the subsidence of the flood (Gen. viii. 4). In almost every part of the East, where there is the tradition of a deluge, the inhabitants connect the resting-place of the great vessel' with some conspicuous elevation in their own neighbour hood. Thus we are informed by the lamented Sir A. Burnes (Travels to Bokhara, vol. i. p. 117), that on the road to Peshawur and Cahill, the Sufued Koh, or White Mountain,' rears its crest on one side, and the towering hill of Noorgill, or Kooner, on the other. Here the Afghans believe the ark of Noah to have rested after the Deluge. Another sacred mountain in the East is Adam's Peak, in the island of Ceylon, and it is a curious circumstance, that in Gen. viii. 4, the Samaritan Pentateuch has Sarandib,' the Arabic name of Ceylon. In the Sibylline verses it is said that the mountains of Ararat were in Phrygia ; but Bochart has ingeniously conjectured that the misconception arose from the city of Apamea there having been called /Cloaks (the Greek word for an ark), because inclosed in the shape of an ark by three rivers. Shuckford, after Sir Walter Raleigh, would place Ararat far to the east, in part of the range anciently called Caucasus and Imaus, and terminat ing in the Himmaleh mountains, north of India ; and to this opinion Kirby inclines in his Bridge water Treatise (p. 45). Dr. Pye Smith also, when advocating the local and partial nature of the Deluge, seeks for a less elevated mountain than the Armenian Ararat, and lays bold of this among other hypotheses (The Relation between Scripture and Geological Science, p. 302) ; whereas Kirby embraces it for the very opposite reason, viz., because, holding the universality of the Flood, he thinks that mountain is not high enough to account for the long period that elapsed (Gen. viii. 5) before the other mountains became visible. Now it is evident that these and such-like theories have been framed in forgetfulness of what the Bible has recorded respecting the locality of Ararat. We may be unable to fix with precision where that region lay, but we can without difficulty decide that it was neither in Afghanistan nor Ceylon, neither in Asia Minor nor in Northern India.
The only other passages where Ararat' occurs are 2 Kings xix. 37 (Is. xxxvii. 38) and Jer. li. 27. In the former it is spoken of as the country whither the sons of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, fled, after they had murdered their father. The apo cryphal book of Tobit (i. 21) says it was cis ra 'Apapete, the mountains of Ararath.' This points to a territory which did not form part of the immediate dominion of Assyria, and yet might not be far off from it. The description is quite appli cable to Armenia, and the tradition of that country bears, that Sennacherib's sons were kindly received by king Paroyr, who allotted them portions of land bordering on Assyria, and that in course of time their posterity also established an independent kingdom, called Vaspurakan (Avdall's Transl. of Chamich's Ilist. of Armenia (vol. i. p. 33, 34). The other Scripture text (Jer. li. 27) mentions Ararat, along with Minni and Ashkenaz, as king doms summoned to arm themselves against Babylon. In the parallel place in Is. xiii. 2-4, the invaders of Babylonia are described as issuing from the moun tains ;' and if by Minni we understand the /l/inyas in Armenia, mentioned by Nicholaus of Damascus (Josephus, Antiq. i. 3, 6), and by Ashkenaz some country on the En.rine Sea, which may have had its original name, Arenas, from Ashkenaz, a son of Gomer, the progenitor of the Cimmerians (Gen, x. 2, 3)—then we arrive at the same conclusion. vie., that Ararat was a mountainous region north of Assyria, and in all probability in Armenia. In Ezek. xxxviii. 6, we find Togarmah, another part of Armenia, connected with Gomer, and in Ezek. xxvii. 14, with Meshech and Tubal, all tribes of the north. With this agree the traditions of the
Jewish and Christian churches, and likewise the accounts of the native Armenian writers, who inform us that Ararad was the name of one of the ancient provinces of their country, supposed to correspond to the modern pashaliks of Kars and Bayazeed, and part of Kurdistan. According to the tradition preserved in Moses of Chorene, the name of Ararat was derived from Arai, the eighth of the native princes, who was killed in a battle with the Babylonians, about B. C. 1 750 ; in memory of which the whole province was called Aray-iarat, i.e., the ruin of Arai. [See Morier's Second yournty, p. 312; Porter's Travels, i. 178; Smith and Dwight's Researches in Armenia, ii. 73, Gesenius adopts the derivation from Sansc. aryavorta, terra sancta.] But though it may be concluded with tolerable certainty that the land of Ararat is to be identified with a portion of Armenia, we possess no historical data for fixing on any one mountain in that country as the resting-place of the ark. Indeed it may be fairly questioned whether the phrase in Gen. viii. 4, rizrin and the ark rested,' necessarily means that the ark actually grounded on the top of a mountain ; it may merely imply that after it had been driven and tossed to and fro on the waste of waters, it at length settled, i.e., attained a measure of comparative repose, and became more stationary over 611) the mountains of Ararat, when the waters began to subside. That this may be the import of the expression will be denied by none who are acquainted with the genius of the Hebrew language, and with the latitude of meaning attachable to the verb rro, which (as is observed by Taylor in his Concordance) includes whatever comes under the idea of remaining quietly in a place without being disturbed.' A vessel enjoys more real rest when becalmed, than when she grounds on the top of a submarine mountain in a troubled sea. What gives plausibility to our conjecture is the fact that whether the rest' was obtained on the bosom of the now calmer deep, or by coming into contact with the dry land, it was nearly three months after this before the tops of the mountains were seen' (Gen. viii. 5) ; the same mountains being evidently intended as those spoken of in the previous verse, viz, the mountains of Ararat. Now, as the waters were all the while abating (v. 3), it is much easier to reconcile this latter statement with the idea of the ark being still afloat, than with the common belief that it lay on a mountain peak ; besides, that by this interpretation we get rid of otherwise inex plicable difficulties. If our suppositionsbe correct, then, for anything that appears to the contrary, the ark did not touch the earth until the waters were abated to a level with the lower valleys or plains, and, consequently, the inmates were not left upon a dreary elevation of i6,000 or 17,000 feet, never till of late deemed accessible to human footsteps, and their safe descent from which, along with all the living creatures' committed to their care, would have been a greater miracle than their deliverance from the flood. By this explanation also we obviate the geological objection against the mountain, now called Ararat, having been sub. merged, which would imply a universal deluge, whereas by the mountains of Ararat' may be understood some lower chain in Armenia, whose height would not be incompatible with the notion of a partial flood. Finally, we on this hypothesis solve the question :—If the descendants of Noah settled near the resting-place of the ark in Armenia, how could they be said to approach the plain of Shinar (Gen. xi. 2), or Babylonia, from the East ? For, as we read the narrative, the precise resting place of the ark is nowhere mentioned ; and though for a time stationary over' the mountains of Ararat, it may, before the final subsidence of the waters, have been carried considerably to the east of them.