Girgashites

In Bible versions:

Girgashites: NET NIV NRSV NASB
Girgashite: AVS NASB TEV

members of a clan of Canaan

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who arrives from pilgrimage

Hebrew

Strongs #01622: yvgrg Girgashiy

Girgashite or Girgasite = "dwelling on a clayey soil"

1) descendants of Canaan and one of the nations living east of the
sea of Galilee when the Israelites entered the promised land

1622 Girgashiy ghir-gaw-shee'

patrial from an unused name (of uncertain derivation); a
Girgashite, one of the native tribes of Canaan:-Girgashite,
Girgasite.

Girgashite [EBD]

dwelling in clayey soil, the descendants of the fifth son of Canaan (Gen. 10:16), one of the original tribes inhabiting the land of Canaan before the time of the Israelites (Gen. 15:21; Deut. 7:1). They were a branch of the great family of the Hivites. Of their geographical position nothing is certainly known. Probably they lived somewhere in the central part of Western Palestine.

Girgashites [NAVE]

GIRGASHITES
Land of, given to Abraham and his descendants, Gen. 15:21; Deut. 7:1; Josh. 3:10; Neh. 9:8.
Delivered to the children of Israel, Josh. 24:11.

GIRGASHITES [SMITH]

(dwelling on a clayey soil), The, one of the nations who were in possession of Canaan east of the Sea of Galilee before the entrance thither of the children of Israel. (Genesis 10:16; 15:21; 7:1)

GIRGASHITE [ISBE]

GIRGASHITE - gur'-ga-shit (girgashi; Gergesaios; also punctuated (?) Girgasite (Gen 10:16 the King James Version)): A son of (the land of) Canaan (Gen 10:16), and accordingly enumerated along with the Canaanite' in the list of tribes or nationalities inhabiting that country (Gen 15:21; Dt 7:1; Josh 3:10; 24:11; Neh 9:8). It has been supposed that the name survived in that of "the Gergesenes," the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "the Gadarenes"), of Mt 8:28, on the East side of the Sea of Galilee; Josephus (Ant., I, vi, 2), however, states that nothing was known about it. The inscriptions of the Egyptian king, Ramses II, mention the Qarqish who sent help to the Hittites in their war with Egypt; but Qarqish was more probably in Asia Minor than in Syria. Pinches (The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records, 324) would identify the Girgashites with the Kirkishati of an Assyrian tablet; the latter people, however, seem to have lived to the East of the Tigris, and it may be that, as in the case of the Hittites, a colony of the Qarqish, from Asia Minor, was established in Palestine.

A. H. Sayce