MEROM, WATERS OF (fnn Mapi3v; Alex.
llleppcZy and Mappaw ; Aferam), the place where Joshua attacked and defeated the confederate princes of northern Palestine who had been col lected by Jabin king of Hazor (Josh. xi. 5, 7). It is only mentioned in the one passage of Scripture, and no clear indication is given of its geographical position. The name would seem to indicate some elevated position ; the word nrin signifying height,' from the root Cll.* The Waters of Merom' must have been in the north of Palestine, and not far distant from Hazor, for after Joshua had pursued the routed Canaanites to Zidon, it is said `he turned back and took Hazor' (ver. 8, to). It is somewhat remarkable that Josephus, in giving an account of this great battle, states that the scene of it was Beroth, a city of upper Galilee, not far from Kadesh' (Antiq. v. I. 18); and he does not mention the Waters of Merom.
Most geographers identify the Waters of Merom with the lake Sanzochonitis, now called el-Hiileh (Reland, p. 262 ; Robinson, B. R., ii. 440). The words of Josephus, though they do not expressly state this, yet seem to indicate it. He describes the city of Hazor as situated over the lake Samochonitis' (Antiq. v. 5. I) ; and Hazor, as has been seen, must have been at or near the Waters of Merom (Cellarius, Geogr. Ant., ii. 480). The name Samochonitis (Map.oxcokrirts, or as it is some times written, Me/Aexcovirts), may perhaps be derived from the Arabic root samak, fait, and would thus be identical in meaning with the brew Meromt (Gesenius, Thes. p. 1276 ; Reland, p. 262). It is true that the usual Hebrew word for sea' or 'lake' is ; but it seems to be ap plied generally to a large expanse of water. The word (` waters') here used with Merom is em ployed in a great variety of meanings in Scripture. It signifies waters,' whether in fountain, river, tank, lake, or sea ; and may therefore be given appropriately to the lake Samochonitis. There is besides no other collection of waters in northern Palestine answering to the notices of Merom in the book of Joshua ; and it may also be added that the shores of this lake form the only ground near the site of Hazor where war-chariots could be used with any effect against an enemy. It may therefore be safely admitted that the Waters of Merom' are identical with the Samochonitis of Josephus, and the modern Bahret el-Haleh.
The name Hilleh appears also to be of high antiquity. The whole of the rich plain north of the lake, as far as the fountains of the Jordan at Banias and Dan, is called Ard The land or province of Hilleh ;' and from it the lake appears to have taken its name. This name we find in Bohadin's Life of Saladin (p. 98) applied to a district. Looking still farther back, Jose plots states that the region of Ulatha (06Xa-a.) and Paneas was given by Augustus to Herod, and he describes it as lying between Trachon and Galilee (Antig. xv. To. 3). There cannot be a doubt that Ulatha is the Greek form of the Arabic Iliileh This fact leads us up to a far more remote period, and shows that the name is among the oldest on record. In Gen. x. 23 we read that Hid was the second son of Aram, and the sacred historian indicates that all the per sons mentioned in this valuable ethnological sum mary were founders of nations to which they gave their own names. Now the Hebrew Hal is radi
cally identical with the Arabic Hine& The Septuagint reading is 00X, and that of Josephus 00Xor (Antic. i. 6. 4), which is just the primitive form of 06Xraa, the name of the district (cf. Ritter, Pal. and Syr. ii. 234Stanley, S. and P., p. 383). It would seem, therefore, that the ori ginal name of the district at or around the sea has continued the same from the remotest ages to modem times—Hal or Huleh—and from this the lake took its common modern appellation. This, however, is not its only name ; Abulfeda calls it the lake of Banias (Tab. Syr., p. 147).
The waters of Merom,' or Lake Haleh, is a sheet of water triangular in form, its apex pointing southward to the place where the Jordan issues from it. Its length is about four and a half miles, and its breadth three and a half; but it is subject to periodical variations in extent, owing to the fall of rain and the melting of the snow on the neigh bouring mountains. It occupies the southern end of a plain or large basin, fifteen miles long by five wide. Round the lake is a broad margin of marshy ground, which extends several miles to the north ward along the banks of the streams, and is covered with dense jungles of canes, the home of wild swine and buffaloes. Beyond the marshes is a wider border of fertile ground, reaching to the mountain ranges on each side, and embracing more than a half of the northern section of the plain. A large portion of its rich soil is now cultivated, partly by local tribes of Bedawin who live in tents and reed huts, and partly by some sheikhs of Lebanon and merchants of Damascus. These latter may be re garded as the modern representative of the old merchant princes of Phmnicia, who planted their agricultural colonies here, in the city of Laish, thirty centuries ago (Judg. xviii. 7-ro).
The lak•is fed by numerous streams and foun tains. The largest is the Jordan, which falls in near the north-eastern angle, and is made up of the united streams from Dan, Banias, and Has beiya [JoRDAN]. West of the Jordan is the stream from Merj 'Ayiln, the Ijon of Scripture [IjoN]. At the foot of the mountains of Naphtali, on the western side of Ard el-Haleh, are several large foun tains, whose waters flow into the lake. The chief of these are 'Ain Belot, and 'AM Mellahah. The latter gives to the lake one of its names. William of Tyre calls it Lames Meleha (Hist. xviii. r3); and the name now usually given to it by the neigh Arabs is Bahret el-Mellahah. Schwartz calls tire fountain Ein el-Malcha, which he trans lates the king's spring,' a manifest confounding of two widely different Arabic words— salt,' and 'king.' According to Dr.
Thomson the district of Mich is also called Arei el-lihait, and the lake Bahret el-Khait (Bibliotheca Sacra, p. 199); but the writer never heard this name (see Reland, p. 262 • Ritter, Pal. and Syr., ii. 231, seq. ; De Bertou, Itineraire, etc.; Rosen miiller, Bibl. Alt. ii.)—J. L. P.