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Champaign
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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sham -pān ´, sham´pān ( ערבה , ‛ărābhāh , בּקעה , biḳ‛āh ): A champaign is a flat open country, and the word occurs in Deuteronomy 11:30 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah") as a translation of ‛ărābhāh , for which the King James Version has in most places "the plain," and the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah," when it is used with the article and denotes a definite region, i.e. the valley of the Jordan from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea (Deuteronomy 2:8; Deuteronomy 3:17; Deuteronomy 4:4 :9; Joshua 3:16; Joshua 8:14; Joshua 11:16; Joshua 12:1 , Joshua 12:3 , Joshua 12:5; 2 Samuel 2:29; 2 Samuel 4:7; 2 Kings 14:25; 2 Kings 25:4; Jeremiah 39:4; Jeremiah 52:7 ), and also the valley running southward from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah (Deuteronomy 1:1 ). Ezekiel 47:8 has for hā -‛ărābhāh "the desert," the King James Version margin"plain," the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah." The plural is used in Joshua 5:10; 2 Kings 25:5 , "the plains of Jericho," and in Numbers 22:1 and Numbers 26:3 , "the plains of Moab." Elsewhere ‛ărābhāh is rendered in English Versions of the Bible "desert" or "wilderness" (Job 24:5; Job 39:6; Isaiah 33:9; Isaiah 35:1 , Isaiah 35:6; Isaiah 40:3; Isaiah 41:19; Isaiah 51:3; Jeremiah 2:6; Jeremiah 17:6; Jeremiah 50:12 ). At the present day, the Jordan va lley is called the Ghaur (compare Hebrew ‛ūr , "to dig," me‛ārāh , "cave," and Arabic maghārah , "cave"). This name is also applied to the deltas of streams flowing into the Dead Sea from the East, which are clothed with thickets of thorny trees and shrubs, i.e. Ghaur -ul -Mezra‛ah , at the mouths of Wādi -Kerak and Wādi -Beni -Ḥammād , Ghaur -uṣ -Ṣāfiyeh , at the mouth of Wādi -ul -Ḥisa . The name "Arabah" (Arabic al -‛Arabah ) is now confined to the valley running southward from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah, separating the mountains of Edom from Sinai and the plateau of at -Tı̄h . See ARABAH .
Ezekiel 37:2 the King James Version margin has "champaign" for biḳ‛āh , which is elsewhere rendered "vale" or "valley." Biḳ‛āh seems to be applied to wide, open valleys, as: "the valley of Jericho" (Deuteronomy 34:3 ), "the valley of Megiddo" (2 Chronicles 35:22; Zechariah 12:11 ), "the valley of Lebanon" (Joshua 11:17 ). If Baal-Gad be Ba‛albeḳ and "the valley of Lebanon" be Coele-syria, the present name of Coele-syria, al -Biḳā‛ (plural of buḳ‛ah , "a low, wet place or meadow"), may be regarded as a survival of the Hebre w biḳ‛āh ̌ .
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Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Champaign'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/c/champaign.html. 1915.
