GIMZO rap! ; Sept. ranii.5), a town of the Shephelah, or -‘ low country' of Judah, captured by the Philistines, with Ajalon and other places, in the reign of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii. IS). It has been identified with the large village of Jimzu, situated on an eminence four miles east of Ramleh, on the road to Beth-horon and Jerusalem. It is about nine miles from Ajalon. The only traces of antiquity in it are large caves hewn in the lime stone rock, along the sides of the little hill, and now used as granaries (Robinson, B. R.,ii. 249; Handbook for S. and P., 279).—J. L. P.
GIN. [FowuNG.] GIR (-11 or 10. This word is used Is. xxvii.
9, and is there rendered in the A. V. by chalk ')ZN, chalk stones '). The Syr. supports this, giving 1..a..—\D (Kel,tho, calx), as the equivalent ; so also the Arab. The word seems to be derived from 1)3, to effervesce, and properly to designate the limestone or rock ; the broken gir-stones ' of the passage above cited are the fragments of limestone prepared for being burnt into lime. Limestone abounds in Palestine ; indeed, the entire geological formation of the country is, with few exceptions, calcareous. This gives occasion to many of the peculiar features of the country, and has not been without historical results (See Stanley, Sin. ana p. 146, ff.)—W. L. A.
(Tim ; Sept. one of the families of Canaan, who are supposed to have been settled in that part of the countr; which lay to the east of the Lake of Gennesareth This conclusion is founded on the identity between the word rep-yecralot, which the Septuagint gives for Girgashites, and that by which Matthew (viii. 28) indicates the land of the Gergesenes. But as this last reading rests on a conjecture of Origen, on which little reliance is now placed [GADARal, the conclusion drawn from it has no weight, al though the fact is possible on other grounds. In
deed, the older reading, Gerasenes,' has sufficient resemblance to direct the attention to the country beyond the Jordan.
The Girgashites are conjectured to have been a part of the large family of the Hivites, as they are omitted in nine out of ten places in which the nations or families of Canaan are mentioned, while in the tenth they are mentioned, and the Hivites omitted. Josephus states that nothing but the name of the Girgashites remained in his time (An tiq. i. 6. 2). In the Jewish Commentaries of R. Nachman, and elsewhere, the Girgashites are de scribed as having retired into Africa, fearing the power of God ; and Procopius, in his History of the Vandals, mentions an ancient inscription in Mauritania Tingitana, stating that the inhabitants had fled thither from the face of Joshua the son of Nun. The fact of such a migration is not un likely ; but we have very serious doubts respect ing the inscription, mentioned only by Procopius, which has afforded the groundwork of many wonderful conclusions ; such, for instance, as that the American Indians were descended from these expelled Canaanites. The notion that the Girga shites did migrate seems to have been founded on the circumstance that, although they are included in the list of the seven devoted nations either to be dliven out or destroyed by the Israelites (Gen. xv. 20, 21 ; Dent. Vii. 1 ; Josh. iii. ro ; xxiv. 1), yet they are omitted in the list of those to be utterly destroyed (Dent. xx. 17), and are probably among those with whom, contrary to the Divine decree, the Israelites lived and intermarried (Judg.
1-6).—J. K.