AROD lintA, wild ass, Ges.; affiction, Furst), one of the sons of Gad, and ancestor of the Arodites (Num. xxvi. 17). He is called Arodi (Gen. xlvi. t7).—W. L. A.
AROD (linV)• This word occurs Job xxxix. 5 ; and in Dan. v.'2I, the plural is found in the dee emphatic state, Aradiya The ren dering of the A. V. is, in the former case, 'wild ass,' in the latter wild asses.' In the latter pas sage Theodoret gives bpd-ype...w, and the onager, boos dyptos, is probably the animal intended by the word. In the former passage it is paralleled with the Per? (rendered also wild ass' in the A. V.), which was probably the designation of the wild mule [PERT]. Bochart (Bk. iii. c. 16) regards the name Iry as onomatopoetic, having reference to the braying of the onager. The Arad is de scribed by Job as having its house in the wilder ness,' and `its dwellings in the barren lands' (ver. 6), and this agrees remarkably with the habits of the onager, the favourite resort of which is elevated, rocky, and barren places. It is de scribed as delighting to stand on the brink of precipices, whence, with protruded ears, it surveys the scene below, blowing and at length braying in extreme excitement' (Col. C. H. Smith). It was this animal which the soldiers chased on the banks of the Euphrates, as described by Xenophon (Ahab. Bk. 1, c. v.) He says its flesh is akin to that of the stag, but tenderer. Some have pro posed to read Iry for and 13./V, in Jer. xvii. 6, and xlviii. 6, on the plea that the heath is not found in Asia ; and in the latter place the LXX. actually give the rendering boos /typos. But though the heath is not found, the juniper is, which the Arabs call _e Ara,, and it is this probably which is referred to by the prophet [ARAR].—W. L. A. AROER Sept. 'Apohp). 1. A town on the north side of the river Amon, and therefore on the southern border of the territory conquered from the Amorites, which was assigned to the tribes o Reuben and Gad (Dent. ii. 36 ; Josh. xii. 2; xiii. 9). The Amorites had previously dispossessed the Am monites of this territory; and although, in the texts cited, the town seems to be given to Reuben, it is mentioned as a Moabitish city by Jeremiah (xlviii. 19). Burckhardt found the ruins of this town under the name of Ara'yr, on the edge of a preci pice overlooking the river (Travels in Syria, 372), [a description which agrees with that of the Ono masticon, 'in vertice montis super ripam torrentis Amon.'] They are merely alluded to by him, and have not been noticed by other travellers. Aroer is always named in conjunction with the city that is in the midst of the river;' [but of this no adequate explanation has been suggested. The most pro bable is, that it was a town situated at the junction of the Modjeb with the Lejfim, where Burckhardt found some ruins (p. 374).] 2. One of the towns ' built,' or probably rebuilt, by the tribe of Gad (Num. xxxii. 34). It is said in Josh. xiii. 25, to be before Rabbah' [of Ammon]; but, as Raumer well remarks (Pallistina, p. 249), this could not possibly have been in the topogra phical sense of the words (in which before means east 0.1), seeing that Aroer, as a town on the eastern border of Gad, must have been west of Rabbah.
But to a person in Palestine Proper, or coming from the Jordan, Aroer would be before Rabbah in the ordinary sense; and it appears to have been thus understood by Burckhardt (Syria, 355), who, in journeying from Szalt towards Rabbath Ammon, notices a ruined site, called Ayra, as one of the towns built by the tribe of Gad.' This Ayra, about seven miles south-west from Szalt, is pro bably the same with the Array-el-Emir, visited by Legh (p. 246), on his way from Heshbon to Szalt, and which in Berghaus's celebrated map of Pales tine is placed two German (nine English) miles W.N.W. of Rabbah. Aroer of Gad is also men tioned in Judg. xi. 33, and 2 Sam. xxiv. 5.
3. A city in the south of Judah, to which David sent presents after recovering the spoil of Ziklag (r Sam. xxx. 26, 28). At the distance of twenty geographical miles S. by W. from Hebron, Dr, Robinson came to a broad Wady where there are many pits for water, which are called 'Ararah, and which gave name to the valley. In the valley and on the western bill are evident traces of an ancient village or town, consisting only of foundations of unhewn stones, now much scattered, but yet suffi ciently distinct to mark them as foundations. Small fragments of pottery are also visible. The identity of name satisfies the traveller that he has here found the Aroer of Judah. —J. K.
Addendum.—In Is. xvii. 2, mention is made of the cities of Aroer' (V3) n)). This has led some to suppose that there was a fciurth Aroer further to the north than any of the others, near to Damascus ; but this is without any supporting evidence. The LXX. rendering is els ray aiava, which leads to the supposition that they must have readly ; and this is followed by Lowth, who further argues, that as Aroer was itself a city, the phrase cities of Aroer' makes no good sense. But this re mark is sufficiently met by the occurrence of such a phrase as Heshbon and all her cities,' Josh. xm. 17 ; and though the words the cities are deserted for ever' make a perfectly good sense, the statement is so vague that it can hardly be accepted as befitting the position in which it stands. The other ancient versions all differ from the Hebrew text, the Chaldee rendering the de serted cities shall be laid waste,' and the Syriac having 'Ado'ir instead of Aroer. The Hebrew codices, however, present no various readings here. Knobel regards the construction as an instance of the genitive supplying the place of a noun in appo sition (comp. Jer. xiv. 17), and renders the cities Aroer ;' by which he supposes are meant both the towns of that name, and that these are put for the 4 east Jordanic towns generally, because the name is assonant with +V, and signifies naked, stripe = for the towns of the district east of the Jordan shall be forsaken of their inhabitants.' Rosenmtiller under stands by it the Aroer of Gad, with the towns in its vicinity which are said to be deserted, because emptied of their inhabitants by Tiglath Pileser (2 Kings xv. 29) ; and in this he is followed by Gesenius, Henderson, Alexander, etc.—W.L.A.