Ge´shur. A district of Syria (; ), which adjoined, on the east side of the Jordan, the northern border of the Hebrew territory, and lay between Mount Hermon, Maachah, and Bashan (; ). According to the boundaries of the Holy Land, as defined by Moses, Geshur would have formed part of it; but in; , it is stated that the Israelites had expelled neither the Geshurites nor the Maachathites, but dwelt together with them. That the Hebrews did not afterwards permanently subdue Geshur appears from the circumstance that, in David's time, this district had a king of its own, called Talmai, whose daughter, Maacah, was one of the wives of David (). She was the mother of Absalom, who took refuge with his grandfather after the murder of Amnon, and remained three years in Geshur (; ). The word Geshur signifies a bridge, and corresponds with the Arabic Jisr; and in the same region where, according to the above data, we must fix Geshur, between Mount Hermon and the lake of Tiberias, there still exists an ancient stone bridge over the upper Jordan, called Jisr-Beni-Jakub, or 'the bridge of the children of Jacob.' i.e. the Israelites.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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