East
1:
EAST. The primary direction for orientation for most of the ANE world. East was the direction of the rising sun, which served as one of the ways of describing the direction in biblical Hebrew. Likewise in Akkadian, the same phrase was often used to indicate east.
In biblical Hebrew the word root qdm is the most common word-group meaning east. Literally, qdm referred to what was before or in front of one. Thus east was the direction a person faced in order to get his/her orientation. Ugaritic used the same root qdm to indicate east or the east wind. The Hebrew words qedem, qēdmâ, qidmat, qadmōni and qādı̂m can have the meaning “east, eastward, eastern.” The other common word for east is mizrāḥ or mizrāḥ (haš)šemeš, the rising of the sun. A third word group ˓al pĕnê, at times translated as east by RSV and other versions, probably should be understood not as a specific direction, but more as a general location, “in the vicinity of.”
East in biblical texts was the location of Eden; and when Cain was banished, it was to an area east of Eden. It was from the east that men migrated to the plain of Shinar to build Babel. The Hebrews designated many peoples who lived east of them as “people of the east”. When Jacob fled to Paddan-Aram, the people there are called “people of the east.” Similarly, the people living across the Jordan river from Israel could be called “people of the east.” People of the east were often respected for their wisdom. In the NT, men from the east came following the star and seeking the messiah-king, and in the vision of Revelation, the Euphrates River is dried up so that kings from the east might destroy Babylon. In a few passages, the Dead Sea, usually called the Salt Sea, is referred to as the Eastern Sea paralleling the similar common terminology for the Mediterranean Sea as the Western Sea.
The east wind was the wind coming from the desert regions of Syria and Arabia. This east wind is today called a khamsin (literally, “fifty,” for it often lasts about fifty days) or sirocco. It comes in a season marked by low humidity, high winds, and extremely hot weather. Because the winds come from the desert regions and are strong, they often carry a great deal of dust and sand. Such winds were extremely sultry, causing plants to wither, even stripping fruit from plants and scattering everything in its path. This east wind can be called “the wind of Yahweh,” for he controls it. He uses the east wind as an instrument of his judgment. It was a strong east wind that drove back the waters of the Red Sea and permitted the Hebrews to cross on dry ground.
Joel F. Drinkard, Jr.
Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary (2:248). New York: Doubleday.
2:
East — (1.) The orient (mizrah); the rising of the sun. Thus “the east country” is the country lying to the east of Syria, the Elymais (Zech. 8:7).
(2). Properly what is in front of one, or a country that is before or in front of another; the rendering of the word kedem. In pointing out the quarters, a Hebrew always looked with his face toward the east. The word kedem is used when the four quarters of the world are described (Gen. 13:14; 28:14); and mizrah when the east only is distinguished from the west (Josh. 11:3; Ps. 50:1; 103:12, etc.). In Gen. 25:6 “eastward” is literally “unto the land of kedem;” i.e., the lands lying east of Palestine, namely, Arabia, Mesopotamia, etc.
Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
3:
EAST. The direction toward the rising of the sun, denoted by the Heb. word mizrāḥ, “rising” (Josh. 11:3; Ps. 103:12; Zech. 8:7), used when the E is distinguished from the W or from some other quarter of the compass (Dan. 8:9; 11:44). Since the Hebrews faced the rising of the sun in telling direction, the E was “the front” (Heb. qedem, “what is the front”; Gen. 13:14; 28:14; Ezek. 47:18). This Heb. word is also used in a geographical sense to describe a spot or country immediately before another in an easterly direction (Gen. 2:8; 3:24; 13:11). In Matt. 2:2, 9 the Gk. expression for E means “rising,” anatolē, “for we saw His star in the east,” that is, in its rising.
Unger, M. F., Harrison, R. K., Vos, H. F., Barber, C. J., & Unger, M. F. (1988). The new Unger's Bible dictionary. Revision of: Unger's Bible dictionary. 3rd ed. c1966. (Rev. and updated ed.). Chicago: Moody Press.
4:
EAST. A bearing indicated in the OT by the phrase mizraḥ-šemeš, ‘rising of the sun’ (e.g. Nu. 21:11; Jdg. 11:18), or more frequently by mizrāḥ, ‘rising’, alone (e.g. Jos. 4:19), and once (Ps. 75:6) by môṣā’, ‘going forth’, alone. In the NT the same usage is found with anatolē, ‘rising’ (e.g. in Mt. 2:1). The rising of the luminaries gave the ancient peoples their standard of direction, so the term qeḏem ‘front’, or some variation of the root qdm, was thus frequently employed to designate the E. The word qdm is attested from c. 2000 bc as a loan-word in the Egyptian ‘Story of Sinuhe’ and from the 14th century in the Ugaritic texts. The wisdom of the East (probably *Babylonia rather than Moab, 1 Ki. 4:30; cf. Mt. 2:1–12) was proverbial, and comparable to that of *Egypt. t.c.m.
Wood, D. R. W., Wood, D. R. W., & Marshall, I. H. (1996, c1982, c1962). New Bible Dictionary. Includes index. (electronic ed. of 3rd ed.) (286). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
5:
east, the, one of the four cardinal points of the compass. The ot terminology for ‘east’ is derived chiefly from two sources. First, it is drawn from language associated with sunrise (Heb. mizrakh, ‘rising, shining,’ Josh. 4:19), sometimes with sun (shemesh, Judg. 21:19) or going forth (motsah, Ps. 75:7) with the sun (Ps. 19:5-7), and morning (boker, Ps. 65:9). Second, it is drawn from derivatives from the root meaning ‘before, in front’ (kdm). Since one orients oneself by facing east, the east is what is before or in front of one. Several derivatives of the root meaning ‘east’ are found in Gen. 11:2; Ezek. 40:6; Gen. 2:14; and Ezek. 10:19. A common use of ‘east’ in the ot, especially in poetry, is in the listing of the four cardinal points to express totality (‘everywhere,’ Joel 2:20; Ps. 75:7; Job 23:8-9). In the nt, ‘east’ (Gk. anatole) is similarly used (Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:29). The east is the source of such ot wisdom figures as Job (Job 1:3), Agur (Prov. 30:1), and Lemuel (Prov. 31:1), as well as of the nt Magi (Matt. 2:1). J.S.K.
Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). Harper's Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.) (233). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
6:
East
The direction of primary orientation for the Hebrews (Heb. qeḏem). South thus was “right” or “the right hand” (têmān) and north was “left” or “the left hand” (kĕmō˒l). This eastward orientation was shared by several other Semitic peoples including the Akkadians and the Sumerians; the Egyptians, however, used south as the primary point for orientation, probably due to the southern source of the Nile River. The Hebrew root qdm has several shades of meaning, including antiquity (since Abraham came from the east); front or face (facing a direction so as to gain orientation); and the “east wind” or “wind of Yahweh” (Hos. 12:1 [MT 2]; cf. Gen. 41:6; Isa. 27:8). In his travels, Yahweh was viewed as coming from the east (Ezek. 10:19; 11:23; 43:1–5).
References to the “land of the east” (˒ereṣ qeḏem; Gen. 25:6; Judg. 6:3, 33; 7:12; cf. Num. 23:7) can be translated as a proper name, “the land of Qedem.” Conflicting Egyptian references to Qedem locate the region either closer to Byblos on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Phoenicia or E of Syria. Most scholars take the phrase descriptively as referring to the general region from northern Mesopotamia to Arabia. “People (sons, or children) of the east” (bĕnê qeḏem) probably refers to the people of this general region: the Edomites, Arabians, Midianites, and people of the Mesopotamian valley (Gen. 29:1; Isa. 11:14; Jer. 49:28). Job is described as the “greatest of the children of the east” (Job 1:3) and is said to have resided in the “land of Uz” in the general area of Edom.
Bibliography. M. Dahood, “The Four Cardinal Points in Psalm 75, 7 and Joel 2, 20, ” Bibl 52 (1971): 397; B. L. Gordon, “Sacred Directions, Orientation, and the Top of the Map,” History of Religions 10 (1971): 211–27.
Dennis M. Swanson
Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (362). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
