Girgashite

Dwelling in clayey soil, the descendants of the fifth son of Canaan (Gen. 10:16), one of the original tribes inhabiting the land of Canaan before the time of the Israelites (Gen. 15:21; Deut. 7:1). They were a branch of the great family of the Hivites. Of their geographical position nothing is certainly known. Probably they lived somewhere in the central part of Western Palestine.

gur'-ga-shit (girgashi; Gergesaios; also punctuated (?) Girgasite (Ge 10:16 the King James Version)): A son of (the land of) Canaan (Ge 10:16), and accordingly enumerated along with the Canaanite' in the list of tribes or nationalities inhabiting that country (Ge 15:21; De 7:1; Jos 3:10; 24:11; Ne 9:8). It has been supposed that the name survived in that of "the Gergesenes," the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "the Gadarenes"), of Mt 8:28, on the East side of the Sea of Galilee; Josephus (Ant., I, vi, 2), however, states that nothing was known about it. The inscriptions of the Egyptian king, Ramses II, mention the Qarqish who sent help to the Hittites in their war with Egypt; but Qarqish was more probably in Asia Minor than in Syria. Pinches (The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records, 324) would identify the Girgashites with the Kirkishati of an Assyrian tablet; the latter people, however, seem to have lived to the East of the Tigris, and it may be that, as in the case of the Hittites, a colony of the Qarqish, from Asia Minor, was established in Palestine.

A. H. Sayce