Ulai was the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
name for a river near the city of
Susa. It was known as Eulaus to the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
s.
It is mentioned twice in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
:
*
Daniel – "''In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal.''" (
New International Version)
*Daniel – "''And I heard a man’s voice from the Ulai calling, 'Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision. "
The river Ulai is also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh: "''May the sacred river u-la-a mourn you
ndiku along whose banks we walked in our vigor''" (VIII-11-12). More details are available a
www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Ulai.html
There are three watercourses near Susa, and scholars are divided on which is indicated, although archaeology by
Loftus in 1851 and
Dieulafoy in 1885 helped shed some light. The Ulai may have been the eastern branch of the
Karkheh River
The Karkheh or Karkhen کرخه (perhaps the river known as the Gihon—one of the four rivers of Eden/Paradise to the Bible and as the Choaspes in ancient times; also called Eulæus; Hebrew: אולי Ulai) is a river in Khūzestān Province, I ...
(alternately called the Choaspes), which at one time divided into two branches some 20 miles north-west of the city.
Another possible location of this river is the
Coprates tributary of the
Karun River
The Karun ( fa, کارون, ) is the Iranian river with the highest water flow, and its only navigable river. It is long. It rises in the Zard Kuh mountains of the Bakhtiari district in the Zagros Range, receiving many tributaries, such a ...
. Finally, some claim an artificial canal
which ran close by Susa and connected the two rivers mentioned above.
References
Hebrew Bible rivers
{{Hebrew-Bible-stub