Enciclopedia Cattolica

GEGEN (EBR. GÍHON)

Gehon (Hebr. Gîhon)

Volume V · p. 1173 · 1950

English translation · Testo originale italiano

GEGEN (ebr. Gíhon). - Secondo dei quattro fumi in cui si divide la corrente all'uscita dal-l'Éden; attraversa tutto il paese di Kóš (Gen. 2, 10, 13).
GEGEN (ebr. Gíhon). - Secondo dei quattro fumi in cui si divide la corrente all'uscita dal-l'Éden; attraversa tutto il paese di Kóš (Gen. 2, 10, 13).

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GEGHON (Hebrew Gîhôn). — The second of the four rivers into which the stream divides at its exit from Eden; it flows through the entire land of KUSH (Gen 2:10, 13).

Given the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates (cf. V. 14; cf. PARADISE, EARTHLY), G. is probably the ancient Araxes, now called Aras, which the Arabs call Gajhūn er-Rās, whose sources are near those of the Tigris and Euphrates and which empties into the Caspian Sea; and KUSH the region (Kāšū) to the east of Mesopotamia (Gen 10:8), whose name would be preserved in the first dynasty after the flood, in the city of KISH and perhaps also in the name of the Kossaeans who ruled Babylon in the second millennium.

BIBL.: P. Heinisch, *Das Buch Genesis*, Bonn 1930, pp. 13 ff.; A. Bas., *De Pentateucho*, 2nd ed., Rome 1933, pp. 150 ff.; F. Cueppens, *De historia primitiva*, iv, 1934, p. 115; H. Simon Prado, *Vetus Testamentum*, 1, 4th ed., Turin 1941, pp. 46 ff.