Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
Delight. (1.) The garden in which our first parents dewlt (Gen. 2:8-17). No geographical question has been so much discussed as that bearing on its site. It has been placed in Armenia, in the region west of the Caspian Sea, in Media, near Damascus, in Palestine, in Southern Arabia, and in Babylonia. The site must undoubtedly be sought for somewhere along the course of the great streams the Tigris and the Euphrates of Western Asia, in “the land
of Shinar” or Babylonia. The region from about lat. 33 degrees 30’ to lat. 31 degrees, which is a very rich and fertile tract, has been by the most competent authorities agreed on as the probable site of Eden. “It is a region where streams abound, where they divide and re-unite, where alone in the Mesopotamian tract can be found the phenomenon of a single river parting into four arms, each of which is or has been a river of consequence.”
Among almost all nations there are traditions of the primitive innocence of our race in the garden of Eden. This was the “golden age” to which the Greeks looked back. Men then lived a “life free from care, and without labour and sorrow. Old age was unknown; the body never lost its vigour; existence was a perpetual feast without a taint of evil. The earth brought forth spontaneously all things that were good in profuse abundance.” (2.) One
of the markets whence the merchants of Tyre obtained richly embroidered stuffs (Ezek. 27:23); the same, probably, as that mentioned in 2 Kings 19:12, and Isa. 37:12, as the name of a region conquered by the Assyrians. (3.) Son of Joah, and one of the Levites who assisted in reforming the public worship of the sanctuary in the time of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29:12).
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1863)
(pleasure).
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
E'DEN " (pleasantness). The home of Adam and Eve before their fall. Gen 2:15. Its site has not been fixed. Two of its rivers are identified, the Euphrates, and the Hiddekel or Tigris; the others are disputed. Some say Gihon was the Nile and Pison the Indus. The best authorities agree that the "garden of Eden eastward" was in the highlands of Armenia, or in the valley of the Euphrates, but its precise location cannot be determined. The Bible,
after the history of the fall of our first parents, withdraws paradise lost from our view, and directs our hope to the more glorious paradise of the future, with its river of life and tree of life. Rev 22:2. A region conquered by the Assyrians, 2 Kgs 19:12; Isa 37:12; probably in Mesopotamia, near modern Balis, and same as the Eden of Eze 27:23. The house of Eden. Am 1:5. See Beth-eden.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898) & Schaff's Bible Dictionary
E'DEN (pleasantness), a Levite in the days of Hezekiah. 2 Chr 29:12; 2 Chr 31:15.
Hitchcock's Bible Names (1869)
pleasure; delight