NILE. The Nile River is one of the great rivers of the world and, in terms of length of the main stream, it is the longest of all rivers, covering some 4,160 m. from its sources in equatorial Africa to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea. Rising in a region of mountains, lakes, and seasonal rains, it traverses marshy and tropical areas and eventually threads its way through rocky desert wastes, where its waters have afforded the sole basis for the existence of living things. It is in the latter reaches that the Nile fostered in Egypt one of the oldest and most long-lived civilizations of which the Western culture is in direct line of descent.

Name. To the ancient Egyptians the Nile was Hapi, which was also the name of the rivergod. It was also simply itrw, “river,” from which the Hebrews derived the term יְאֹֽר, יְאֹ֖ור, “river,” the name for the Nile in the Heb. Bible. The ultimate origin and the meaning of the name Nile are unknown (Gr. Νεῖλος; Lat. Nilus).

Sources. Though sources may be traced farther S, it may be said that the White Nile stream begins at Lake Victoria, whose only outlet is the Victoria Nile, which exits on the NE, over Ripon Falls.

Course and tributaries. The river passes through shallow Lake Kioga, plunges down Murchison Falls, and enters Lake Albert, from which it emerges shortly as the Bahr el Jebel, “the river of the mountain.” South of Lake No are large swamps where floating masses of vegetation called sudd used to block the stream upon occasion and were the often fatal deterrent of early explorers of the river. The Bahr el Jebel is joined at Lake No by the Bahr el Ghazal, “the river of the gazelles”; after this junction the river is called the White Nile. At Khartoum the White Nile is united with the Blue Nile, which provides the greater part of the annual flow of the united river and during flood season has twice the volume of the White Nile. The Blue Nile also carried much of the alluvium responsible for the creation and renewal of the soil of ancient Egypt. A short distance N of Khartoum is the sixth cataract, the first of those natural barriers which were numbered from N to S in the order of their discovery. Below the sixth cataract are the ruins of Meroë, the capital of the Meroitic Empire, c. 300 b.c. to a.d. 350. From here to Aswan lies Nubia, where salvage archeology attracted world-wide cooperation at the time of the building of the High dam. The last tributary of the Nile, the Atbara, enters from the E; thereafter the Nile continues some 1500 m. to the Mediterranean without receiving the waters of any other stream. Between the fourth and third cataracts are the remains of Napata, the center of the so-called Ethiopian (25th) dynasty of Egypt. From the third Cataract N the Egyptians in ancient times maintained a number of fortresses and settlements. Just above Aswan is the famous Aswan Dam and a few m. to the S is the Sadd el Aali, “the High Dam.” Between Aswan and the Mediterranean the water is controlled by a series of barrages. In antiquity there were seven estuaries of the Nile in the Delta, but today there are only two, the Rosetta in the W and the Damietta in the E.

The Nile and ancient Egypt. In antiquity Hecataeus, echoed by Herodotus, declared that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. The river carved the valley and laid down the alluvium, which gave Egypt its ancient name, Kemet, “Black Land,” as contrasted with the redness of the desert. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the river for Egypt. The Nile touched nearly every facet of Egyp. life and gave to Egyp. culture many of its characteristic features. In ancient times the recognition of dependence on the river lead to the deification of the stream under the figure of the god Hapi, represented as a well-fed man with pendulous breasts, bearing offerings of the products of the river. In addition to providing many of the necessities and some of the pleasures of life, the Nile by its regular annual inundation was the basis of the practical agricultural calendar. The coincidence of the heliacal rising of the Dog Star, Sirius (Sothis), and the beginning of the inundation gave rise to the chronological unit of 1460 years, called the Sothic cycle.

Nile and the Bible. Many of the Biblical references to the Nile are found in the Pentateuch, particularly in the Joseph narrative and the account of the Exodus, but there are also a number of references in the prophetic writings. The first mention of the river is in Pharaoh’s dream (Gen 41:1-4, 17-21); the king stood on the bank of the Nile and saw fat cattle come out of the river, followed by lean cows that devoured the first cattle. When the Egyptians later feared the resident Israelites, it was commanded that every Israelite male child that was born should be thrown into the river (Exod 1:22). Jochebed, the mother of Moses, saved her son by placing him in a waterproofed basket of bulrushes and concealing him in the reeds along the water’s edge (2:3), where the king’s daughter discovered the child when she came to the river to bathe (v. 5). When the Lord commissioned Moses, one of the signs He gave to confirm his appointment was the turning of Nile water into blood (4:9). It was at the river that Moses confronted the king with ultimatums relating to the Exodus (7:15; 8:20). The first of the plagues (turning water to blood) was directed against the river and the river-god Hapi (cf. Exod 7:17-24; 17:5; Ps 78:44). The following plague (frogs) also was associated with the river (Exod 8:3, 5, 9, 11). The historical books show little relationship with the physical geography of Egypt; Sennacherib king of Assyria is said to boast, “I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt” (2 Kings 19:24). In the prophecy of Amos there are references to the Nile and its rising and falling (Amos 8:8; 9:5). Isaiah mentions the Nile quite frequently; there is the comment that the fly “at the sources of the streams of Egypt” was to be a troubler of Israel (Isa 7:18). Isaiah’s burden of Egypt (ch. 19) declares that the rivers of Egypt will stink and be dried up (v. 6); the vegetation along the river will be destroyed (vv. 6, 7) and the fishermen will lament (v. 8). The burden of Tyre (ch. 23) mentions that the Phoen. traders received revenue of “the harvest of the Nile” (v. 3) and Tyre is told to “overflow your land like the Nile” (v. 10). In a prophecy concerning Egypt Jeremiah referred to the rising of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). Ezekiel 29 gives predictions against the king of Egypt and describes him in imagery taken from the Nile. He is called “the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams” (v. 3), who claims “The Nile is mine, and I made it” (cf. v. 9). The fish of the streams are mentioned in vv. 4, 5 and again destruction is prophesied. At that time the Lord also declared that He was against Pharaoh and the streams of Egypt and that He would make the entire land a desolation (v. 10). Zechariah, in speaking of the return of Israel to Pal. from Egypt and Assyria, remarked that “all the depths of the Nile” will be dried up (10:11). The Biblical writers were well aware of the importance of the Nile to Egypt and they practically identified the country with its river.

Bibliography H. E. Hurst and P. Phillips, The Nile Basin, 5 vols. (1931-1938); E. Ludwig, The Nile (1936); H. E. Hurst, The Nile (1952); A. Moorehead, The White Nile (1960); A. Moorehead, The Blue Nile (1962); B. Brander, The Nile (1966).