These idolatrous Jews of old are represented as worshipping the sun towards the east, i.e. at his ri.sing. This was a custom with the Persians, and also, in all probability, with all the nations which adored that luminary. At. the temple of Borsippa, which is generally regarded as the Tower of Babel, the worship of the sun was possibly an institution of long standing, and at the beginning of a new day, that is, at sunset, the following hymn was sung :—
' Sun-eod In the midst of hcaTen, at thy setting, .May the bolt of hoaven lofty npfak theo peace — May the door of heaven bless thee. MIAflru, the ine.ssencer, thv beloved, let him direct theo. At ft-baharra, the seat of thy dominion, thy supremacy
shines forth. May Aa, thy tielovcd wife, gla<lly come to meet theo ; May thy heart take rest ;
May thy divine refreshment be prepared for theo. Warrior, hero, siin-pod, may they jrlorlfy thee. LonI of ft.babarra. may the course of thy road prosper. 8im-j;od, direct thy path, make llrm the" road, go to thine
abode. Snn-ffod, thou art judpe of the land, (and) director of Its
decl.slons.'
In this hymn the sun is not only represented in a manner similar to that of the p.salmist, as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber (I's 10''), but his bride is conceived as going to meet him,
* .\monir the Rabylonlans, the Important thine In connexion with the efrernonles seems to have been the chariot, and this was probably the ease at .lerusalem. With the Persians, on tlio other han«l. the horses seem to have been at least as Itnnortant, and sometimes the one, snmetlmes the other, folh»\vi-d In the professions. The cnlonr of these saere<l horses wa-, while, and they were on certain occasions sacrltlcod to tbo sun lUurod. I. 188, Til. 40, 65 ; Xon. Cyr. tUI. 8).
and he takes rest and refreshment after his weary- ing course. The last line of the inscription shows him also in the character which he commonly had with the Babylonians, namely, that of judge, which he apparently possessed as witness of every- thing that passes on the earth (' under the sun,' as so often occurs in Ecclesia-stes, e. g. V-^ etc.). The tablet which followed the above was a hymn to the rising sun, beginning (the Akkadian version only is preserved), Utu ann-azuffa-Ca ea, ' Sun-god in the glorious heaven rising,' and may liave resembled that with which the heathen Jews greeted the luminary, when performing the ceremony referred to by Kzekiel.*
The judgment pronounced against the sun and moon (Is 24-^), in which the former was to be ashamed, is regarded by some as resting upon the fact that the idolatrous worship which was paid to it was accounted as a sin, the consequences of which rested upon the object causing it, and would be visited upon it by God at the last day. This is probable ; but the end of the verse ought to be taken into account, for when the Lord reigns in Zion gloriously the sun may well be put to shame on account of his inferior lustre.
LiTEKATURE. — Kiehm, //WB; Sayce, Ilibberi Lecfurea^lSST \ Pinches In TSBA, 1854, pp. 164-1G9; Tran$actiom of the Victoria Institute, 1S94, pp. 10, 16, IT.
T. G. Pinches. SUPERSCRIPTION (^7ri7pa0^).— 1. The legend on a com (.Mt 2l'*', Mk 12ie, Lk 20'.:*). See MONEY. 2. The accusation on the Cross of Jesus (Mk IS-", Lk 2338). See Title on the Ceoss.
SOPH. — One of the expressions used in Dt 1^ to (IcfiiKf the locality of Moses' address to Israel [?; on the difficulty of this interpretation see Driver] is ' in the Arabah, over against Suph ' (iiiD >": [i.e. by di.ssimil., for Si';], AV 'over against the Red Sea'). If the MT be correct, Suph is a place- name, possibly identical with SfPIIAIl of Is'u 21'-', but, upon the whole, it appears more probable that e)iD^i-: is a textual error for I'D'e^c (cf. LXX TrXriulov T^s ipvdpas [floXdtrcTTjs], A^ulg. contra mare rubrnm). Yam ,sf(;)ft t means probably ',sea of reeds,' and appears to have been originally a title given to the upper end of the Gulf of Suez, which would be shallow and marshy, and abounding in reeds (W. M. Miiller, As. u. Kurop. 42 f.). In the OT this designation is usually confined to the W. (Suez) arm of the Ked Sea: Ex in''^ (J) 13's LV 2^ 2331 (all four E), Nu 3:3'i'i' (P), l)t IIS .;os2i» (J) 4-8 (D), Neh 99, Ps 100"i>-22 13(i"i''. It stands, how- ever, for the Gulf of 'Akabah not only in Dt 1' (if the above suggestion is correct), but in Nu 21* (E) and I K 9-«; prob. also in Nu U^s (E), Dt l'" 2i; and perhaps Jg ll'", Jer 4'J-'.
J. A. SKLRIE.
SUPHAH (^?''0). — The name of an unknown locality E. of .lordan, found only in an dbscure fragment of ancient poetry preserved in Nu 21''' (' Vahel) in Suphah '). The suggestion of Trislram {Land of Moah, 50 f.), that it may be the modern tSafieh. 'M exposed to tlie objection of which he him.self is aware, that the initial D of the Ileb. word could hardly represent an Arabic ^JO. The same difficulty attaches to Knobel's identification with Kakb es-Safa, some 25 miles W.S.W. of the Dead Sea. See, further, the Comm. ad Inc.