Tiph´sah, a large and opulent city on the western bank of the Euphrates. It is doubtless the same as the Thapsacus of the Greeks and Romans. The name means 'ford;' and the town was, in fact, situated at the lowest fording-place of the Euphrates; whence it became the point of trading-communication between the natives east and west of the river. On this account, and as commanding the ford, the possession of the place was deemed of great importance by the ruling powers of the day. This circumstance explains the contentions of the kings of Syria and Egypt respecting Carchemish, which was a strong place a little lower down the river, at the junction of the Chaboras. Solomon obtained possession of Tiphsah (), probably in connection with the series of operations (of which the building or fortification of Tadmor was one) adopted by him for the purpose of drawing the Eastern trade into his own dominions [SOLOMON; TADMOR]. Nothing remains of Tiphsah at the present-day except the name; but the site is supposed to be marked by the village of Ed-Deyr.
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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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