stone” also records that “Omri took the land of Medeba, and occupied it in
his day and in the days of his son forty years.”
- ON light; the sun, (Genesis 41:45, 50), the great seat of sun-worship,
called also Bethshemesh (Jeremiah 43:13) and Aven (Ezekiel 30:17), stood
on the east bank of the Nile, a few miles north of Memphis, and near
Cairo, in the north-east. The Vulgate and the LXX. Versions have
“Heliopolis” (“city of the sun”) instead of On in Genesis and of Aven in
Ezekiel. The “city of destruction” Isaiah speaks of (19:18, marg. “of
Heres;” Hebrews ‘Ir-ha-heres, which some MSS. read Ir-ha-heres, i.e.,
“city of the sun”) may be the name given to On, the prophecy being that
the time will come when that city which was known as the “city of the
sun-God” shall become the “city of destruction” of the sun-God, i.e., when
idolatry shall cease, and the worship of the true God be established.
In ancient times this city was full of obelisks dedicated to the sun. Of
these only one now remains standing. “Cleopatra’s Needle” was one of
those which stood in this city in front of the Temple of Tum, i.e., “the
sun.” It is now erected on the Thames Embankment, London.
“It was at On that Joseph wooed and won the dark-skinned Asenath, the
daughter of the high priest of its great temple.” This was a noted
university town, and here Moses gained his acquaintance with “all the
wisdom of the Egyptians.”
- ONAN strong, the second son of Judah (Genesis 38:4-10; comp.
Deuteronomy 25:5; Matthew 22:24). He died before the going down of
Jacob and his family into Egypt. - ONESIMUS useful, a slave who, after robbing his master Philemon (q.v.)
at Colosse, fled to Rome, where he was converted by the apostle Paul,
who sent him back to his master with the epistle which bears his name. In
it he beseeches Philemon to receive his slave as a “faithful and beloved
brother.” Paul offers to pay to Philemon anything his slave had taken, and
to bear the wrong he had done him. He was accompanied on his return by
Tychicus, the bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians (Philemon 1:16, 18).
The story of this fugitive Colossian slave is a remarkable evidence of the
freedom of access to the prisoner which was granted to all, and “a beautiful
illustration both of the character of St. Paul and the transfiguring power
and righteous principles of the gospel.”