The first we take is the modern Al-Ḳûsh, a town still flourishing about twenty-four miles to the north of the site of Niniveh,[202] with “no fragments of antiquity” about it, but possessing a “simple plaster box,” which Jews, Christians and Mohammedans alike reverence as the tomb of Nahum.[203] There is no evidence that Al-Ḳûsh, a name of Arabic form, is older than the Arab period, while the tradition which locates the tomb there is not found before the sixteenth century of our era, but on the contrary Nahum’s grave was pointed out to Benjamin of Tudela in 1165 at ‘Ain Japhata, on the south of Babylon.[204] The tradition that the prophet lived and died at Al-Ḳûsh is therefore due to the similarity of the name to that of Nahum’s Elḳôsh, as well as to the fact that Niniveh was the subject of his prophesying.[205] In his book there is no trace of proof for the assertion that Nahum was a descendant of the ten tribes exiled in 721 to the region to the north of Al-Ḳûsh. He prophesies for Judah alone. Nor does he show any more knowledge of Niniveh than her ancient fame must have scattered to the limits of the world.[206] We might as well argue from chap. iii. 8-10 that Nahum had visited Thebes of Egypt. The second tradition of the position of Elḳôsh is older. In his commentary on Nahum Jerome says that in his day it still existed, a petty village of Galilee, under the name of Helkesei,[207] or Elkese, and apparently with an established reputation as the town of Nahum.[208] But the book itself bears no symptom of its author’s connection with Galilee, and although it was quite possible for a prophet of that period to have lived there, it is not very probable.[209] A third tradition places Elḳôsh in the south of Judah. A Syriac version of the accounts of the prophets, which are ascribed to Epiphanius,[210] describes Nahum as “of Elḳôsh beyond Bêt Gabrê, of the tribe of Simeon”;[211] and it may be noted that Cyril of Alexandria says[212] that Elkese was a village in the country of the Jews. This tradition is superior to the first in that there is no apparent motive for its fabrication, and to the second in so far as Judah was at the time of Nahum a much more probable home for a prophet than Galilee; nor does the book give any references except such as might be made by a Judæan.[213] No modern place-name, however, can be suggested with any certainty as the echo of Elḳôsh. Umm Lâḳis, which has been proved not to be Lachish, contains the same radicals, and some six and a quarter miles east from Beit-Jibrin at the upper end of the Wady es Sur there is an ancient well with the name Bir el Ḳûs.[214] 2. THE AUTHENTICITY OF CHAP. I.