Meaning
Champaign sham-pan', sham'-pan (`arabhah, biq`ah): A champaign is a flat open country, and the word occurs in De 11:30 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah") as a translation of `arabhah, for which the King James Version has in most places "the plain," and the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah," when it is used with the article and denotes a definite region, i.e. the valley of the Jordan from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea (Deu 2:8, Deu 3:17, Deu 4:4, Jos 3:16, Jos 8:14, Jos 11:16, Jos 12:1, Jos 12:3, Jos 12:1, 2Sa 2:29, 2Sa 4:7, 2Ki 14:25, 2Ki 25:4, Jer 39:4, Jer 52:7), and also the valley running southward from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah (De 1:1). Eze 47:8 has for ha-`arabhah "the desert," the King James Version margin "plain," the Revised Version (British and American) "the Arabah." The plural is used in Jos 5:10, 2Ki 25:5, "the plains of Jericho," and in Num 22:1, Num 26:3, "the plains of Moab." Elsewhere `arabhah is rendered in English Versions of the Bible "desert" or "wilderness" (Job 24:5, Job 39:6, Isa 33:9, Isa 35:1, Isa 35:6, Isa 40:3, Isa 41:19, Isa 51:3, Jer 2:6, Jer 17:6, Jer 50:12). At the present day, the Jordan va lley is called the Ghaur (compare Hebrew `ur, "to dig," me`arah, "cave," and Arabic magharah, "cave"). This name is also applied to the deltas of streams flowing into the Dead Sea from the East, which are clothed with thickets of thorny trees and shrubs, i.e. Ghaur-ul-Mezra`ah, at the mouths of Wadi-Kerak and Wadi-Beni-Chammad, Ghaur-uc-Cafiyeh, at the mouth of Wadi-ul-Hisa. The name "Arabah" (Arabic al-`Arabah) is now confined to the valley running southward from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah, separating the mountains of Edom from Sinai and the plateau of at-Tih.
See ARABAH.
Eze 37:2 the King James Version margin has "champaign" for biq`ah, which is elsewhere rendered "vale" or "valley." Biq`ah seems to be applied to wide, open valleys, as: "the valley of Jericho" (De 34:3), "the valley of Megiddo" (2Ch 35:22, Zec 12:11), "the valley of Lebanon" (Jos 11:17). If Baal-Gad be Ba`albeq and "the valley of Lebanon" be Coele-syria, the present name of Coele-syria, al-Biqa` (plural of buq`ah, "a low, wet place or meadow"), may be regarded as a survival of the Hebre w biq`ah.
Alfred Ely Day
