road of Palestine; leaving a force, therefore, to invest Tyre, Esar-haddon led the main body of the Assyrian troops into Egypt on the 5th of Adar, 673 B.C. The desert was crossed with the help of the Arabian sheikh. Egypt seems to have submitted to the invader and was divided into twenty satrapies. Another campaign, however, was needed before it could be finally subdued. In 670 B.C. Esar-haddon drove the Egyptian forces before him in 15 days (from the 3rd to the 18th of Tammuz) all the way from the frontier to Memphis, thrice defeating them with heavy loss and wounding Tirhaka himself. Three days after Memphis fell, and this was soon afterwards followed by the surrender of Tyre and its king. In 668 B.C. Egypt again revolted, and while on the march to reduce it Esar-haddon fell ill and died on the 10th of Marchesvan. His empire was divided between his two sons Assur-bani-pal and Samas-sum-yukin, Assur-bani-pal receiving Assyria and his brother Babylonia, an arrangement, however, which did not prove to be a success. Esar-haddon was the builder of a palace at Nineveh as well as of one which he erected at Calah for Assur-bani-pal.
Authorities.—E. A. W. Budge, History of Esarhaddon (1880); E. Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, ii. (1889) (Abel and Winckler in ii. pp. 120-153); G. Maspero, Passing of the Empires, pp. 345 sqq.; F. von Luschan, “Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli,” i. (Mitteilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen, 1893). (A. H. S.)
ESAU, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, in the Bible, and the elder
twin brother of Jacob. He was so called because he was red
(admōnī) and hairy when he was born, and the name Edom (red)
was given to him when he sold his birthright to Jacob for a meal
of red lentil pottage (Gen. xxv. 21-34). Another story of the
manner in which Jacob obtained the superiority is related in
Gen. xxvii. Here the younger brother impersonated the elder,
and succeeded in deceiving his blind father by imitating the
hairiness of his brother. He thus gained the blessing intended
for the first-born, and Esau, on hearing how he had been forestalled,
vowed to kill him. Jacob accordingly fled to his mother’s
relatives, and on his return, many years later, peace was restored
between them (xxxii. sq.). These primitive stories of the relations
between the eponymous heads of the Edomites and Israelites
are due to the older (Judaean) sources; the late notices of the
Priestly school (see Genesis) preserve a different account of the
parting of the two (Gen. xxxvi. 6-8), and lay great stress upon
Esau’s marriages with the Canaanites of the land, unions which
were viewed (from the writer’s standpoint) with great aversion
(Gen. xxvi. 34 sq., xxvii. 46). For “Esau” as a designation of
the Edomites, cf. Jer. xlix. 8, Obad. vv. 6, 8, and on their history,
see Edom.
Esau’s characteristic hairiness (Gen. xxv. 25, xxvii. 11) has given rise to the suggestion that his name is properly ‘ēshav, from a root corresponding to the Arab. ‘athiya, to have thick or matted hair. Mt Seir, too, where he resided, etymologically suggests a “shaggy” mountain-land. According to Hommel (Sud-arab. Chrestom. p. 39 sq.) the name Esau has S. Arabian analogies. On the possible identity of the name with Usoos, the Phoenician demi-god (Philo of Byblus, ap. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. i. 10), see Cheyne, Encyc. Bib. col. 1333; Lagrange, Études sur les religions sémitiques, p. 416 (Paris, 1905); Ed. Meyer, Israeliten, 278 sq. (and, on general questions, ib. 128 sq., 329 sqq.). (S. A. C.)
ESBJERG, a seaport of Denmark in the amt (county) of Ribe,
18 m. from the German frontier on the west coast of Jutland.
It has railway communication with the east and north of Jutland,
and with Germany. It was granted municipal rights in 1900,
having grown with astonishing rapidity from 13 inhabitants in
1868 to 13,355 in 1901. This growth it owes to the construction
of a large harbour in 1868–1888. It is the principal outlet
westward for S. Jutland; exports pork and meat, butter, eggs,
fish, cattle and sheep, skins, lard and agricultural seeds, and has
regular communication with Harwich and Grimsby in England.
Three miles S.E. is Nordby on the island of Fanö, the northernmost
of the North Frisian chain. It is an arid bank of heathland
and dunes, but both Nordby and Sönderho in the south are
frequented as seaside resorts. The former has a school of navigation.
The fisheries are valuable.
ESCANABA, a city and the county-seat of Delta county,
Michigan, U.S.A., on Little Bay de Noquette, an inlet of Green
Bay, about 60 m. S. of Marquette. Pop. (1890) 6808; (1900)
9549, of whom 3214 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,194.
It is served by the Chicago & North-Western and the Escanaba
& Lake Superior railways. It is built on a picturesque promontory
which separates the waters of Green Bay from Little
Bay de Noquette, and its delightful summer climate, wild
landscape scenery and facilities for boating and trout fishing
make it a popular summer resort. Escanaba has a water front
of 8 m., and is an important centre for the shipment of iron-ore,
for which eight large and well-equipped docks are provided—there
is an ore-crushing plant here; considerable quantities of
lumber and fish are also shipped, and furniture, flooring (especially
of maple) and wooden ware (butter-dishes and clothes-pins)
are manufactured. There is a large tie-preserving plant here.
Good water power is supplied by the Escanaba river. Escanaba
was settled in 1863, was incorporated as a village in 1883, and
was first chartered as a city in the same year.
ESCAPE (in mid. Eng. eschape or escape, from the O. Fr.
eschapper, modern échapper, and escaper, low Lat. escapium,
from ex, out of, and cappa, cape, cloak; cf. for the sense development
the Gr. ἐκδύεσθαι, literally to put off one’s clothes,
hence to slip out of, get away), a verb meaning to get away from,
especially from impending danger or harm, to avoid capture, to
regain one’s liberty after capture. As a substantive, “escape,”
in law, is the regaining of liberty by one in custody contrary to
due process of law. Such escape may be by force, if out of
prison it is generally known as “prison-breach” or “prison-breaking,”
or by the voluntary or negligent act of the custodian.
Where the escape is caused by the force or fraud of others it is
termed “rescue” (q.v.). “Escape” is used in botany of a
cultivated plant found growing wild. The word is also used of a
means of escape, e.g. “fire-escape,” and of a loss or leakage of gas,
current of electricity or water.
ESCHATOLOGY (Gr. ἔσχατος, last, and λόγος, science; the
“doctrine of last things”), a theological term derived from
the New Testament phrases “the last day” (ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ,
John vi. 39), “the last times” (ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων, 1 Peter
i. 20), “the last-state” (τὰ ἔσχατα, Matt. xii. 45), a conception
taken over from ancient prophecy (Is. ii. 2; Mal. iv. 1). It was
the common belief in the apostolic age that the second advent of
Christ was near, and would give the divine completion to the
world’s history. The use of the term, however, has been extended
so as to include all that is taught in the Scriptures about the
future life of the individual as well as the final destiny of the
world. The reasons for the belief in a life after death are discussed
in the article Immortality. The present article, after a brief
glance at the conceptions of the future of the individual or the
world found in other religions, will deal with the teaching of the
Old and New Testaments, the Jewish and the Christian Church
regarding the hereafter.
There is a bewildering variety in the views of the future life and world held by different peoples. The future life may be conceived as simply a continuation of the present life in its essential features, although under conditions more or less favourable. It may also be thought of as retributive, as a reversal of present conditions so that the miserable are comforted, and the prosperous laid low, or as a reward or punishment for good or evil desert here. Personal identity may be absorbed, as in the transmigration of souls, or it may even be denied, while the good or bad result of one life is held to determine the weal or woe of another. The scene of the future life may be thought of on earth, in some distant part of it, or above the earth, in the sky, sun, moon or stars, or beneath the earth. The abodes of bliss and the places of torment may be distinguished, or one last dwelling-place may be affirmed for all the dead. Sometimes the good find their abiding home with the gods; sometimes a number of heavens of varying degrees of blessedness is recognized (see F. B. Jevons, An Introduction to the History of Religion, chs. xxi. and xxii., 1902; and J. A. MacCulloch’s Comparative Theology, xiv., 1902).
(1) Confucius, though unwilling to discuss any questions concerning the dead, by approving ancestor-worship recognized a future life. (2) Taoism promises immortality as the reward of
