The passages where the name occurs are: Gn 331' ^xyiteti ; Josl327B^«X'>'<'<i>A^>a>X^> t.ui.'. ira.* ; JgS5-'8 B I«« jifl, in v.l« ■rf,! T(ii«,-, A lixxiS ; 1 K 7-'6 (v.ii in LXX) i«X"i' ; '- Ch 4l' B 1ixx^9<!), A S««x«9; Ps 608 B ,;, ,»„ir,, Aq. Tvn.»fi^,; Ps 10S8 N T»> r«ii>»/uT»>, ART mtSt.
The passages in Joshua, Judges, Kings, and Chron. refer to a place E. of Jordan. Jos 13-'' mentions Succoth as in the territory of Sihon, king of Heshbon. In Gideon's pursuit of the Midianites as related in Jg 8, he comes to Succoth after crossing the Jordan. From the references in Ps 60« [""''; 8] 108' ["""-S] to the 'valley of Succoth ' nothing definite as to geographical posi- tion can be inferred, but a locality east of the Jordan is suitable (note that the LXX in these two
assages does not treat Succoth as a proper name).
erome on Gn 33" (Quast. Heb. in lib. (Pen.) ob- serves with reference to Succoth : ' Est autem usque hoilie civitas trans Jordanem hoc vocabulo
* On the other hand, it is found In the Rhemish NT in a Itad sense : 'As God hath shewed by the successe of all Heretical Colloquies, Synodes, and Assemblies in Germanie, Prance, Poole, and other places in our dales ' (note on Ac 1638),
inter partes Scythopoleos.' Jerome testifies to the survival of the Heb. name, while Josephus (as already remarked) testifies to the existence of its Gr. equivalent. The Talm. Jerus. (Sheliith, ix. 2) gives .iSviT (in some edd. ■i'7i'nn) as yet another name for Succoth, and Merrill (East of the Jordan, p. 386), followed bv Conder (Heth and Moab, p. 183) and G. A. Smith (HGHL, 585), proposes Tell Deir'Alla, a mound about 1 mile N. of the Jalibok, as the site of the ancient Succoth, and the present equivalent of n'jyin. A place i'(l^•»^ about 10 miles south of Beisan, on the west of the Jordan, has also been proposed as the site ; but, though this may meet the requu-ements of the narrative in Gn 33, a place E. of the Jordan seems necessary for some of the other places where the name is mentioned. Tristram {Bible Places, p. 345) failed to find any trace of the name Succoth east of Jordan.
2. (^o/cxiiff, Ex l^" IS* Nu 33«' •) The first encampment of the children of Israel on leaN-ing Eg3-pt. The word is a pure Heb. one, signifying ' booths ' or ' tents ' (see above), but Egyptologists regard it as the equivalent of an Egyptian word Thuku or Thukct, the name of a region of which the capital was Pithom. Brugsch and Naville are agreed on this point, but not as to the situation of Pithom. Ebers proposes a difterent Egyptian word as the equivalent of Succoth, but agrees with Naville as to the position of the region so desig- nated. Referring to art. Exodus, vol. i. p. 802, it will be seen that the neighbourhood of the station Ramses, on the railway from Zagazig to Ismailia, corresponds to the ancient Succoth. The children of Israel must have remained here a short time to arrange themselves in order for their future march ; and whether the name was used bj' them in imitation of a similarly sounding Egyptian word, or because they then began to dwell in booths, may be left an open question.
A. T. Chapman.
SUCCOTH-BENOTH (nijj-Msp ; B'Poxx«*(3oivetSff, A 2ovxM*/ic>''^f' ; Sochoth-benoth). — In 2 K 17'" it is said that the colonists from Babylon at Samaria 'made Succoth-benoth,' just as the colonists from Cuth 'made Nergal.' The parallelism between Xertjnl and Succoth-benoth shows that the latter must be the name of a deitj'. As Nergal was the patron-god of Cuth, it is reasonable to infer that in Succoth-benoth we have a corrupted form either of Bel-Merodach, the patron-god of Babj'lon, or of his wife Zarpanit. There is consequently a good deal of probability in the conjecture of liawlinson (Herodvtus^, i. p. 654) that we have in it a corruption of the Babylonian Zarpanit, ' the silvery one,' which, in accordance with a popular etjmiology, is generally written Zer-bnnit, ' the seed-creatress,' in the cuneiform texts. The spell- ing of the name in the LXX lends support to this view ; and it is just possible that Rawlinson may be right in suggesting that the biblical Succoth is due to a confusion between zerit, which seems to he a derivative form from zeru (see Haupt, Simrod- Jijwx, 8, 35), and zardt, 'tents' or 'booths.' In Am 5-*' the name of the Babylonian god Sakkut has been transformed into nop, if we accept Schrader's explanation of the passage (SK, 1874, pp. 324-332). Perhaps the fact that the images of the Babylonian divinities were carried in pro- cession in ' ships ' or arks, assisted in the change of the name. It is even possible that by Succoth the Hebrew WTiter intended to denote these pro- cessional shrines, henoth (from Benith) being corrupted from Bclith or Belit, the classical Beltis, a common title and synonym of Zer-banit.
LrrsRATCBR.— Schrader, COT i. 274 f. ; Delitzsch, Parodies 216 ; Jensen, ZA iv. 352 ; and the Conuu. ad loc.
A. H. Savcb.
SUD
SUN
627
SUD C^ouS, Sodi). — The 'river' uf Babylon, on wlikli ilwi-lt 'Jeclioiiiiis, the sou of Joakim, kinj; of .luUah," and his fellow-exiles (Bar l-"). The canal on which Babylon was situated before its destructinn by Sennacherib was called the Arakhtu ; but the whole of Babylonia was intersected by small canals, each of which had a name, and it is therefore quite possible that in the time of Nebuch- adrezzar one of those in the neighbourhood of the capital bore a name which resembled Sud. As, however, the Greek sibilant can represent more than one Semitic letter, it is useless to speculate about the Babylonian form of the name until we know liow it was written in Hebrew or Aramaic.