66,182 in 1900. The town is regularly built, with wide streets, some of them lined with trees, and is a wealthy town, which has become an industrial centre for the region especially on account of its steam flour-mills, in which it is second only to Odessa, its distilleries, mechanical workshops, tobacco and tallow factories and brickworks. It is an important centre for trade in cereals and flour for export, and in sheep, cattle, wool, leather and timber. Five fairs are held annually. It has a military school, a first-class meteorological station and a botanical garden. The town was founded in 1754 and named after the empress Elizabeth. The fortifications are now decayed.
ELISAVETPOL, a government of Russia, Transcaucasia,
having the governments of Tiflis and Daghestan on the N.,
Baku on the E., and Erivan and Tiflis on the W. and Persia on
the S. Area, 16,721 sq. m. It includes: (a) the southern slope
of the main Caucasus range in the north-east, where Bazardyuzi
(14,770 ft.) and other peaks rise above the snow-line;
(b) the arid and unproductive steppes beside the Kura, reaching
1000 ft. of altitude in the west and sinking to 100–200 ft. in the
east, where irrigation is necessary; and (c) the northern slopes of
the Transcaucasian escarpment and portions of the Armenian
plateau, which is intersected towards its western boundary,
near Lake Gok-cha, by chains of mountains consisting of trachytes
and various crystalline rocks, and reaching 12,845 ft. in Mount
Kapujikh. Elsewhere the country has the character of a plateau,
7000 to 8000 ft. high, deeply trenched by tributaries of the Aras.
All varieties of climate are found from that of the snowclad
peaks, Alpine meadows, and stony deserts of the high levels, to
that of the hill slopes, clothed with gardens and vineyards, and
of the arid Caspian steppes. Thus, at Shusha, on the plateau,
at an altitude of 3680 ft., the average temperatures are: year
48°, January 26°, July 66°; annual rainfall, 26.4; while at
Elisavetpol, in the valley of the Kura, they are: year 55°,
January 32°.2, July 77° and rainfall only 10.3 in. Nearly one-fifth
of the surface is under forests.
The population which was 885,379 in 1897 (only 392,124 women; 84,130 urban), and was estimated at 953,300 in 1906, consists chiefly of Tatars (56%) and Armenians (33%). The remainder are Kurds (4.7%), Russians and a few Germans, Jews, Kurins, Udins and Tates. Peasants form the great bulk of the population. Some of the Tatars and the Kurds are nomadic. Wheat, maize, barley, oats and rye are grown, also rice. Cultivation of cotton has begun, but the rearing of silkworms is of old standing, especially at Nukha (1650 tons of cocoons on the average are obtained every year). Nearly 8000 acres are under vines, the yield of wine averaging 8212 million gallons annually. Gardening reaches a high standard of perfection. Liquorice root is obtained to the extent of about 35,000 tons annually. The rearing of live-stock is largely carried on on the steppes. Copper, magnetic iron ore, cobalt and a small quantity of naphtha are extracted, and nearly 10,000 persons are employed in manufacturing industry—copper works and silk-mills. Carpet-weaving is widely spread. Owing to the Transcaucasian railway, which crosses the government, trade, both in the interior and with Persia, is very brisk. The government is divided into eight districts, Elisavetpol, Aresh, Jebrail, Jevanshir, Kazakh, Nukha, Shusha and Zangezur. The only towns, besides the capital, are Nukha (24,811 inhabitants in 1897) and Shusha (25,656).
ELISAVETPOL (formerly Ganja, alternative names being
Kenjeh and Kanga), a town of Russia, capital of the government
of the same name, 118 m. by rail S.E. of Tiflis and 312
m. from the railway, at an altitude of 1446 ft. Pop. (1873)
15,439; (1897) 33,090. It is a very old town, which changed
hands between Persians, Khazars and Arabs even in the 7th
century, and later fell into the possession of Mongols, Georgians,
Persians and Turks successively, until the Russians took it in
1804, when the change of name was made. It is a badly built
place, with narrow streets and low-roofed, windowless houses,
and is situated in a very unhealthy locality, but has been much
improved, a new European quarter having been built on the site
of the old fortress (erected by the Turks in 1712–1724). The
inhabitants are chiefly Tatars and Armenians, famed for their
excellent gardening, and also for silkworm breeding. It has a
beautiful mosque, built by Shah Abbas of Persia in 1620; and
a renowned “Green Mosque” amidst the ruins of old Ganja,
4 m. distant. The Persian poet, Shah Nizam (Nizam-ed-Din),
was born here in 1141, and is said to have been buried (1203)
close to the town. The Persians were defeated by the Russians
under Paskevich outside this town in 1826.
ELISHA (a Hebrew name meaning “God is deliverance”),
in the Bible, the disciple and successor of Elijah, was the son
of Shaphat of Abel-meholah in the valley of the Jordan. He
was symbolically elected to the prophetic office by Elijah some
time during the reign of Ahab (1 Kings xix. 19-21), and he
survived until the reign of Joash. His career thus appears to
have extended over a period of nearly sixty years. The relation
between Elijah and Elisha was of a particularly close kind, but
the difference between them is much more striking than the
resemblance. Elijah is the prophet of the wilderness, wandering,
rugged and austere; Elisha is the prophet of civilized life, of the
city and the court, with the dress, manners and appearance of
ordinary “grave citizens.” Elijah is the messenger of vengeance—sudden,
fierce and overwhelming; Elisha is the messenger of
mercy and restoration. Elijah’s miracles, with few exceptions,
are works of wrath and destruction; Elisha’s miracles, with but
one notable exception, are works of beneficence and healing.
Elijah is the “prophet as fire” (Ecclus, xlviii. 1), an abnormal
agent working for exceptional ends; Elisha is the “holy man
of God which passeth by us continually” (2 Kings iv. 9), mixing
in the common life of the people.
It is impossible to draw up a detailed chronology of his life. In most of the events narrated no further indication of time is given than by the words “the king of Israel,” the name not being specified. There are some instances in which the order of time is obviously the reverse of the order of narrative, and there are other grounds for concluding that the narrative as we now have it is confused and incomplete. This may serve not only to explain the chronological difficulties, but also to throw some light on the altogether exceptional character of the miraculous element in Elisha’s history. On the literary questions, see further Kings.
Not only are Elisha’s miracles very numerous, even more so than those of Elijah, but they stand in a peculiar relation to the man and his work. With all the other prophets the primary function is spiritual teaching; miracles, even though numerous and many of them symbolical like Elisha’s, are only accessory. With Elisha, on the other hand, miracles seem the principal function, and the teaching is altogether subsidiary. An explanation of the superabundance of miracles in Elisha’s life is suggested by the fact that several of them were merely repetitions or doubles of those of his predecessor. Such were: his first miracle, when, returning across the Jordan, he made a dry path for himself in the same manner as Elijah (2 Kings ii. 14); the increase of the widow’s pot of oil (iv. 1-7); and the restoration of the son of the woman of Shunem to life (iv. 18-37). The theory that stories from the earlier life have been imported by mistake into the later, even if tenable, applies only to three of the miracles, and leaves unexplained a much larger number which are not only not repetitions of those of Elijah, but have an entirely opposite character. The healing of the water of Jericho by putting salt in it (ii. 19-22), the provision of water for the army of Jehoshaphat in the arid desert (iii. 6-20), the neutralizing by meal of the poison in the pottage of the famine-stricken sons of the prophets at Jericho (iv. 38-41), the healing of Naaman the Syrian (v. 1-19), and the recovery of the iron axehead that had sunk in the water (vi. 1-7), are all instances of the beneficence which was the general characteristic of Elisha’s wonder-working activity in contrast to that of Elijah. Another miracle of the same class, the feeding of a hundred men with twenty loaves so that something was left over (iv. 42-44), deserves mention as the most striking though not the only instance of a resemblance between the work of Elisha and that of Jesus (Matt. xiv. 13-21). The one distinct exception to the general beneficence of Elisha’s activity—the
