EAST. This is the rendering in the A. V. of two Hebrew words tintn and nip, and of the Greek ControX?) dvaroNal.
1. 1111D properly denotes the sun-rising-, from nit. It is used tropically for the east indefinitely (Ps. ciii. 12 ; Dan. viii. 9 ; Am. viii. 12, etc.); also definitely, for some place in relation to others, thus —` The land of the east,' i.e., the country lying to the east of Syria, the Elymais (Zech. viii. 7) ; `the east of Jericho' (Josh. iv. 19) ;. the east gate' (Neh. iii. 29), and adverbially eastward' (I Chron. vii. 28 ; ix. 24, etc.) Sometimes the full expression ID is used (indefinitely, Is. xli. 25; definitely, Judg. xi. 18).
2. nip properly means what is in front of before (comp. Ps. cxxxix. 5 ; Is. ix., I I [12]). As the Hebrews, in pointing out the quarters, looked to wards the east, nip came to signify the east, as WIN behind, the west, and the right hand, the south. In this sense it is used (a) indefinitely, Gen. xi. 2 ; xiii. I 1, etc. ; (b) relatively, Nuns. xxxiv. II, etc. ; (c) definitely, to denote the regions lying to the east of Palestine (Gen. xxix. I ; Num. xxiii. 7 ; Is. ix. u ; sometimes in the full form, yit: (Gen. xxv. 6), the inhabitants of which are denominated nip += [BENEI KEDEM]. In Is. ii. 6, the house of Jacob is said to be replenished from the east' (nipn 11.6n), which some explain as referring to witchcraft, or the arts of divination practised in the East, while others, with greater probability, understand it of the men of the East, the diviners and soothsayers who came from the east. There seems no reason for altering the reading to ?opn, as suggested by Brentius.
3. 'AvaroXii. This word usually occurs in the plural, and without the article. When, therefore, we read, as in Matt. ii. I, 2, that 5.td-yot ard hem• roX(.7.w came to Jerusalem saying we have seen his star be orb' civaroXV we are led to suspect some special reason for such a variation. The former phrase is naturally rendered as equivalent to Ori ental Magi, and the indefinite expression is to be explained by reference to the use of nip in the O. T. The latter phrase offers greater diffi• culty. If it be taken-=' in the east,' the questions arise, why the singular and not the customary plural should be used ? why the article should be added? and why the wise men should have seen the star in the east when the place where the child was lay to the west of their locality (for that iv 1 baron re lates to the star and not the wise men themselves, seems too obvious to be questioned). Pressed by the difficulties thus suggested, the majority of re cent interpreters take ?v dvaroXf) literally=in its rise, and trace a correspondence of this with the rexeds of the preceding clause : they enquired for the child, whom they knewto be born, because they had seen the rising of his star, the signal of his birth. Alford objects to this, that for such a meaning we should expect mire', if not in ver. 2, certainly in ver. 9 ; but the construction falls under the case where the article, by indicating something closely associated with the subject, supersedes the use of the demonstrative pronoun.—W. L. A.