See ON.
City of the sun,\par 1. A celebrated city of Egypt, called in Coptic, Hebrew, and the English version, ON, sun, light, Gen 41:45 . The Seventy mention expressly, Exo 1:11, that On is Heliopolis. Jeremiah, Jer 43:13, calls this city Beth-shemesh, that is, house or temple of the sun. In Eze 30:17, the name is pronounced Aven, which is the same as On. The Arabs called it Ani-Shems, fountain of the sun. All these names come from the circumstance that the city was the ancient seat of the Egyptian worship of the sun. It was in ruins in the time of Strabo, who mentions that two obelisks had already been carried away to Rome. At present its site, six miles north northeast from Cairo, is marked only by extensive ranges of low mounds full of ruinous fragments, and a solitary obelisk formed of a single block of red granite, rising about sixty feet above the sand, and covered on its four sides with hieroglyphics.\par 2. Another Helioplis is alluded to in Scripture under the name of the "plain of Aven," or field of the sun, 1Sa 1:5 . This was the Heliopolis of Coele-Syria, now Baalbec. Its stupendous ruins have been the wonder of past centuries, and will continue to be the wonder of future generations, till barbarism and earthquakes shall have done their last work. The most notable remains are those of three temples, the largest of which, with its court and portico, extended 1,000 feet from east to west. A magnificent portico, 180 feet long, with twelve lofty and highly wrought columns, led to a large hexagonal court, and this to a vast quadrangle, 440 feet by 370. Fronting on this rose ten columns of the peristyle, which surrounded the inner temple. There were nineteen columns on each side, or fifty-four in all, only six of which are now standing, and they were seven feet in diameter, and sixty-two feet high, besides the entablature of nearly fourteen feet. This temple rested on an immense vaulted substructure, rising nearly fifty feet above the ground outside, and in this are three stones sixty-three long and thirteen feet high, lying twenty feet above the ground. The temples are of Roman origin; and in vastness of plan, combined with elaborateness and delicacy of execution, they seem to surpass all others in the world. "They are like those of Athens for lightness, but far surpass them in vastness; they are vast and massive, like those of Thebes, but far excel them in airiness and grace." (Robinson.)\par
Heliop’olis. See On.
(ON):
By: Joseph Jacobs, W. Max Muller
Egyptian city, whence came Poti-pherah, Joseph's father-in-law (Gen. xli. 45, 50; xlvi. 20). It is mentioned also in Ezek. xxx. 17, where the punctuation 
, Awen, is to be corrected to 
, On. The versions render "Heliopolis" in all cases "Heliupolis." An addition in the Septuagint (Ex. i. 11) mentions Heliopolis among the cities built by the Israelites. The inscriptions, however, show that it was perhaps the most ancient of all Egyptian cities—certainly the most sacred about 3000 B.C. Its god, Atumu (Etôm), was then the most prominent of the many forms under which the sun-god appeared in Egypt (being identified especially with the setting sun), so that the city bore the name "house of the sun" (comp. the Greek "Heliopolis" and the equivalent Hebrew "Beth-shemesh"; Jer. xliii. 13 [doubted by Winckler, "Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen," p. 180, who considers "Beth" as an erroneous repetition of the final syllable of the word "maẓẓebot"]).
It is remarkable that sanctity is still attached to the sacred well and tree among the insignificant ruins near Maṭariyyah, a few miles north of Cairo, which are protected by Christianization of the old myths (whence the place had the earlier Arabic name "'Ain al-Shams" [fountain of the sun]). The temples, of which only one obelisk from the twelfth dynasty has been preserved, were famous for their size and beauty, as were the priesthood for their learning, for which they were praised by Herodotus. A trace of this respect may possibly be found in the Biblical mention of Joseph's Egyptian relatives. Politically, the city was never of importance, although it was the capital of the thirteenth nome of Lower Egypt. Its position near the caravan road from Syria seems to have given it great commercial importance; hence the numerous Jewish settlements in and around it, among which were Castra and Vicus Judæorum. It already had Canaanitish quarters about 1200 B.C. Therefore the Septuagint considered it as a Jewish place (see above); Juba, in Pliny, vi. 177, as Arabic. During the Roman period it diminished rapidly in population and importance; the Arabs found it deserted.
The hieroglyphic form is "'-n-w"; the Biblical pronunciation is attested also by the Assyrian "Unu" (Delitzsch, "Wo Lag das Paradies?" p. 318, where the identity is, however, disputed; comp. also "C. I. S." 102a, 2, for mention in a Phenician inscription).
An ancient Egyptian city known for worshiping the sun god Re. Its name means "city of the sun." It was located in the Nile River delta area of Lower Egypt, near modern Cairo. Heliopolis became important around 2400 BC when Atum-Re became the main god. Many pharaohs improved the city's temples and built monuments, especially during the New Kingdom period (1570–1150 BC).
The temples in Heliopolis kept the royal records, so the priests became Egypt's official historians. Herodotus, a Greek historian from the 5th century BC, said the priests at Heliopolis were famous for knowing Egyptian history. The city also had schools for priests and a medical school.
There were other sun worship centers in Egypt, but Heliopolis stayed popular for about 2,000 years. While it was not very important politically, it had a big influence on religion. The temple of Re at Heliopolis was the second largest religious building in Egypt, after the temple of Amon at Thebes.
In the Old Testament, Heliopolis is called On. When Joseph worked for the Egyptian government, he married Asenath, whose father Potiphera was a priest of On (Genesis 41:45, 50; 46:20). The prophet Ezekiel warned that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Egyptian cities, including Heliopolis (Ezekiel 30:17).
In the book of Amos 1:5, the Revised Standard Version (RSV) Bible offers a different way to read "Valley of Aven." In the margin, it suggests "On" as another possible translation. The same change is seen in Ezekiel 30:17, where the New Living Translation (NLT) uses "Heliopolis" instead.
Jeremiah also said the sacred pillars of Heliopolis would be destroyed (Jeremiah 43:13). Isaiah 19:18 might also refer to Heliopolis.
Heliopolis lost importance in the fourth and third centuries BC, partly because of the new library in Alexandria. Alexandria took over as Egypt's main center of learning.
Today, not much is left of the ancient sun city, but you can still see an obelisk built by Sesostris I at the site of Heliopolis. Sesostris I ruled Egypt from 1971 to 1928 BC. Several obelisks from Heliopolis, built by Thutmose III, have been moved to different parts of the world in modern times. Thutmose III ruled Egypt from 1490 to 1436 BC.
Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.