Telmelah
Tel-me'lah (Heb. Tel-me'lach, תֵּלאּמֵלִח, salt hill; Sept. Θελμελέχ and Θελμελέθ, v.r. Θελμεχέλ and Θερμελεθα; Vulg. Thelmala) is joined with Tel-harsa and Cherub as the name of a place where the Jews returned who had lost their pedigree after the Captivity (Ezr 2:59; Ne 3:32). It is perhaps the Thelme of Ptolemy (5, 20), which some wrongly read as Theane (ΘΕΑΜΗ for ΘΕΛΜΗ), a city of the low salt tract near the Persian 'Gulf,' whence probably the name (Gesen. Lex. Heb. s.v.). Cherub, which may be pretty surely identified with Ptolemy's Chiripha (Χιριφά), was in the same region. Herzfeld (Gesch. Tsr. 1, 452) insists that it designates the province of Melitene according to Ptolemy (6,3), adjoining Susiana west of the Tigris; but Ptolemy (5, 7, 5) and Pliny (6, 3) know only a Melitene on the border of Cappadocia and Armenia Major.
