NILUS. - River of Egypt. It is mentioned in many passages of the Bible and is indeed often called simply "the river" by antonomasia (Gen. 41:1-3; Ex. 1:22; 2:3; 7:17-22; 8:5-13; 9:9; Ps. 77 [78]:44; Jer. 46:7-8; Is. 19:6-9; 18:2). As is natural, it is always present in the life of the country: the pharaoh dreams of it in Genesis (41:1-3), when he sees the seven fat cows and then the seven lean cows of the prediction come up from the river; the pharaoh orders that all the newborn male children of the Hebrews be thrown into the river (Ex. 1:22); and among the reeds of the bank Moses is laid and then found and saved by the pharaoh's daughter, who had come down to bathe in the waters (ibid. 2:3-6).
The N. is an instrument of Yahweh's vengeance against Egypt, when Moses is ordered to command Aaron to stretch out his hand over the river to make frogs come out of it (ibid. 8:5-13), and Moses himself proclaims that he and Aaron are able to turn the water into blood, so that the fish will die and the waters will become putrid
(ibid. 7:17-22; cf. 4:9; Ps. 44). At another point there is an allusion to the possibility that the river may remain dry (Is. 19:6); indeed, among the grave threats that resound in the words of Ezekiel (29:1-16) is that of Yahweh to make Egypt arid, desert, uninhabitable because of the pride of the pharaoh, who refuses to acknowledge in God the creator of the river and therefore of the country's prosperity.
Still in the Bible there is an allusion to the flooding of the N. (Jer. 46:7-8), to the fact that Alexandria is entirely surrounded by the waters of the river as well as by the sea (Nah. 3:8), to the hippopotamus and the crocodile of the N. (Job 40:10-28) and perhaps to the dragon (Ex. 32:2; Am. 9:4); as well as to the fishermen with net and hook (Is. 19:8) and to the papyrus boats that come from Ethiopia toward the north (ibid. 18:2).
Aristide Calderini