ὄφιρ, the name of a place, country, or region famous for its gold, which Solomon's ships visited in company with the Phoenician. Regarding its locality there are several interminable controversies. We shall lay before the reader the exact amount of our information respecting the subject, and show how far it applies to what appears to be the three most probable localities,—namely, Arabia, Africa, and India. Our information amounts to this, that King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom; that his Phoenician neighbour and ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, sent in this navy his servants along with the servants of Solomon; that they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, and brought it to Solomon; and that they brought in the same voyage alum or almut trees and precious stones (1 Kings x. 11), silver, ivory, apes (or rather monkeys), and peacocks (according to some, pheasants, and to others, parrots). The first theory which appears to be attended with some degree of evidence not purely fanciful is, that Ophir was situated in Arabia. In Gen. x. 29, Ophir stands in the midst of other Arabian countries. Though gold is not now found in Arabia, yet the ancient writers, both sacred and profane, ascribe it to the inhabitants in great plenty. We may also suppose, along with some authors, that Ophir, situated somewhere on the coast of Arabia, was an emporium at which the Hebrews and Tyrians obtained gold, silver, ivory, apes, almut trees, &c., brought thither from India and Africa by the Arabian merchants, and even from Ethiopia. In favour of the theory which places Ophir in Africa, it has been suggested that we have the very name in ὄφιρος, ὄφιρος, and that the Chald. Targumist on 1 Kings xxii. 48 so understood it, where he renders ὄφιρος by ὄφιρος; probably inferring from 2 Chron. xx. 36, that to go to Ophir and to Tarshish was one and the same thing. Origen also says, on Job xxii. 24, that some of the interpreters understood Ophir to be Africa. Michaelis supposes that Solomon's fleet, coming down the Red Sea from Ezion-geber, coasted along the shore of Africa, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and came to Tarshish, which he, with many others, supposes to have been Tartessus in Spain, and thence back again the same way; that this conjecture accounts for their three years' voyage out and home; and that Spain and the coasts of Africa furnished all the commodities which they brought back. Others have conjectured that Solomon's fleet, after reaching Spain by that course, came home by the Mediterranean; thus completing a circuit which Herodotus relates to have been completed by the mariners of Necho, King of Egypt. In behalf of the conjecture that Ophir was in India, the following arguments are alleged,—that it is most natural to understand from the narrative that all the productions said to have been brought from Ophir came from one and the same country, and that they were all procurable only from India. The Sept. translators appear to have held this opinion, from rendering the word ὄφιρος, ὄφιρος, ὄφιρος, which is the Egyptian name for that country. Josephus also expressly and unhesitatingly affirms that the land to which Solomon sent for gold was "anciently called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus, which belongs to India;" and the Vulgate renders the words "the gold of Ophir" (Job xxviii. 16) by "tinctis Indic coloribus." There are several places, such as Malacca, comprised in that region which was actually known as India to the ancients, any of which would have supplied the cargo of Solomon's fleet. (Among other works on this controversy not before referred to, see Wahner, De Regione Ophir; Tychsen, "De Commerc. Hebr." in Commenti. Gott. xvi. 194, &c.; Huetii Commentatio de Navigatione Salomonis; Reland, Dissert. Miscell. i. 172; or in Ugolini Thesaurus, vii.)