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earth!’
    10.
Though the Hebrew prophets disguised the names of Apsu, Tiamat and Baou as empty abstractions, yet
Isaiah
XL. 17:
    All the nations are as nothing before Him,
    They are accounted by Him as
Ephes
and
Tohu…
    immediately follows a passage recalling God’s feats in the days of Creation. And in
Isaiah
XXXIV. 11–12, Tohu, Bohu and Ephes are used with plain reference to their mythological meaning, when the prophet predicts Edom’s destruction:
    He
[
God
]
shall stretch over it
    The line of
Tohu
    And the stones of
Bohu…
    And all her princes
    Shall be
Ephes…
    11.
‘He confined Tehom with a bolt and two doors,’ refers to a double door and the bolt shot across its wings. The same image occurs in the
Enuma Elish:
after Marduk had killed Tiamat and formed the Heavens from one half of her body, he ‘shot a bolt across, and placed watchers over it to prevent Tiamat from letting out her waters.’ The text of the
Enuma Elish
suggests that
nahash bariah
, the phrase in
Isaiah
XXVII. 1 and
fob
XXVI. 13 describing Leviathan, could also mean ‘the bolted-in serpent’.
Bariah
, without any change in vocalization, means ‘bolted, shut in’, as well as ‘fleeing’.
    12.
Paran, on which God took up His abode according to
Habakkuk
III. 3, is one of several mountains in Teman (‘the South-land’) which He is said to have thus honoured; the others being Horeb, Sinai and Seir (
Exodus
III. 1;
Deuteronomy
XXXIII. 2). From Paran He would ride out vengefully on the wings of the storm (
Zechariah
IX. 14). The mountainous wilderness of Paran, Zin and Kadesh, where the Israelites wandered for forty years, and where God appeared to them in fire
(Exodus
XIX. 1–3 and 16–20), had associations not only with Moses, but with Elijah (1
Kings
XIX. 8), and Abraham (see 29.
g
).

3
MYTHICAL COSMOLOGY
    (
a
) So great was the work accomplished at the Creation that a walk from east to west across the Earth would take a man five hundred years—if he lived to finish it; and a walk from north to south would take him another five hundred years. These distances correspond with those from Earth to the First Heaven, and from the First Heaven to its summit. As for Earth itself—one-third of its surface is desert, one-third sea, and the remaining third habitable land. 9
    Some reckon the width of Earth as 6000 parasangs, namely 18,000 miles, in all directions; and the height of the sky as 1000 parasangs, or 3000 miles. 10 Others believe Earth to be even larger: Egypt, they say, measures 400 by 400 parasangs, or 1200 by 1200 miles; yet Egypt is one-sixtieth the size of Ethiopia, Ethiopia one-sixtieth of the Earth’s surface, Earth one-sixtieth of Eden, and Eden one-sixtieth of Gehenna. Thus Earth is to Gehenna as a small lid to an immense pot. 11
    Eastward of the habitable world lies the Garden of Eden, abode of the righteous. Westward lie the Ocean and its islands; and behind them the Desert, a parched land where only snakes and scorpions crawl. Northward stretch Babylonia and Chaldaea, and behind them are storehouses of Hell-fire and storehouses of snow, hailstones, fog, frost, darkness and gales. Here live demons, harmful spirits, the host of Samael; here also is Gehenna, where the wicked are confined. Southward lie the Chambers of Teman, storehouses of fire, and the Cave of Smoke, whence rises the hot whirlwind. 12
    (
b
) According to others, the East is the quarter from which light and heat spread across the world; the West contains the storehouses of snow and hailstones from which cold winds blow; dews and rains of blessing come from the south; the north breeds darkness. 13
    God fastened down the firmament to the rim of Earth on the east, south and west, but left the northern part loose, announcing: ‘Should anyone say “I am God!”, let him fasten down this side too, in proof of his godhead.’ 14
    (
c
) The seven Earths, separated from one another by intervals ofwhirlwind, are named in ascending order:
Eres, Adama, Harabha, Siyya,