a Hamitic tribe descended from Mizraim (Ge 10:13). Others identify this word with Napata, the name of the city and territory on the southern frontier of Mizraim, the modern Meroe, at the great bend of the Nile at Soudan. This city was the royal residence, it is said, of Queen Candace (Ac 8:27). Here there are extensive and splendid ruins.

A Mizraite tribe (Ge 10:13; 1Ch 1:11) coming in order after the Lehabim or Libyans. Niphaiat is Coptic for the country W. of the Nile. on Egypt's N.W. borders, about the Mareotic lake. The Na-petu. the people called "the Nine Bows," are mentioned in the Egyptian monuments (G. Rawlinson). Gesenius from Plutarch (de Isaiah 355) thinks the Naphtuhim were on the W. coast of the Red Sea, sacred to the goddess Nepthys wife of Typhon. Knobel derives Naphtuhim from the deity Phthah.

Fourth son of Mizraim (Ge 10:13; 1Ch 1:11). Many suggestions have been made to account for the name, which does not appear exactly in Egyptian or Assyrian inscriptions, but in Ashurhanipal's Annals (Col 1:29,29) a district Nathu, probably in Lower Egypt, occurs, which may be the same. An Egyptian n-idhw, 'the marshes,' used in contrast to Pathros, may be intended; but the discovery of Caphtor, so long a puzzle, may warn us to wait for further evidence.

C. H. W. Johns.

Naph'tuhim

Descendants of Mizraim, supposed to have settled in some part of Egypt, but where is unknown. Ge 10:13; 1Ch 1:11.

Naph'tuhim

(border-people), a Mizraite (Egyptian) nation or tribe mentioned only in the account of the descendants of Noah.

Ge 10:13; 1Ch 1:11

If we may judge from their position in the list Of the Mizraites, the Naphtuhim were possibly settled, at first, either in Egypt or immediately to the west of it.

NAPHTUHIM, a son, or rather the descendant of a son, of Mizraim, whose proper name is Naphtuch. Naphtuch is supposed to have given his name to Naph, Noph, or Memphis, and to have been the first king of that division of Egypt. He is, however, placed by Bochart in Lybia; and is conjectured to be the Aphtuchus, or Autuchus, who had a temple somewhere here. He is farther conjectured, and not without reason, to be the original of the Heathen god Neptune; who is represented to have been a Lybian, and whose temples were generally built near the sea coast. By others, he is supposed to have peopled that part of Ethiopia between Syene and Meroe, the capital of which was called Napata.