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31 July 2022 Navigate 'up' to the Genesis index: index-genesis.
The name of the first was Pishon. It meanders through [or perhaps, encircles] all the land of the Havilah, where there is gold.
The name Pishon occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. I do not know what specific river, if any, it refers to. Havilah, on the other hand, is better attested. In the enthnographic genealogy of Genesis 10, it is associated with Arabians (v. 29) and Kushites (v. 11), a dark-skinned people (often? generally?) associated with the land south of Egypt. Genesis 25:18 and 15:7 associate it with perhaps the Sinai or North Arabia. Where the Masoretic Text reads ha-havilah ("the Havilah"), the Samaritan Pentateuch has simply havilah ("Havilah").[1]
"Where there is gold" might be the tie-breaker here, but I don't know enough about the locations of global gold deposits.
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