ZOPHIM.— The ' field of Zophim ' (D-?i- n--f, LXX (h dypou (jKOTnay) was one of the spots to which Balal^ took l'>alaa,m to view Israel, Nu23'*(JE). It is questionable whether we have here a proper name ; the Heb. expression means literally ' Held of viewers or lookers out' (note the addition 'to the top of Pisgah '). Such 'places of watching' (nssa) were naturally situated frequently on the tops of hUls (see Mizpah, vol. iii. p. 400»). On the impossible combination Ramat/uxim-fophim of ISP see art. Ramah, p. 19S*.
ZORAH {^sry< BA Zapad, ynth the following e.xceiitions : B in Jos 15^ om., 19^^ Zapde, Jg 13^ ^apdX; A in Jg IS'-^ ^apd, 18- 'Apai ; in Neh 11^ Bx* A om., N'^- ' l,apad, Luc. -apd). — A town allotted to Judah, according to Jos 15^; but else- wliere spoken of as Danite, Jos 19", Jg 18--*-" (coupled with EsilTAOL) ; specially noted as the home of SamsoN, Jg 13--", who was buried between Zorah and Eslitaol, 16^'. It was fortified by Ruhob'oam, 2 Ch 11'", and is mentioned in Neh 11-'* as peojiled by Judahites after the Captivity. The gentilic name Zorathites (•";?■!>■?) occurs in 1 Ch 2=^ (ol Zapaeam) 4- (B 6 'ApaSei, A 6 ^apaBl, Luc. ^aXadi-qX) and prob. 2" (where read Zoratliites 'r'i'''VO for Zorites "pi'D : B 6 'Ho-apuei, A 6 'Haapacl, Luc. 6 -apaOi). In the latter verse the name Manahalhites (Manoahites) is a reminiscence of Manoah the father of Samson.
^orali is the modern Surah on the northern side of Wddy e^-Surar (the Valley of Sorely) opposite 'Ain Shcms (Beth - shemesh), which lies on the southern side. This corresiionds with the state- ment of Eusebius {OS" 293, 29) that it was 10 miles from Eleutheropolis on tlie road to Nico- polis. It is mentioned under the name Zardn in the Travels of a Mohar (Sayce, HCM 344), and as Zarkha in the Tel el-Aniarna letters (Winckler, No. 173 ; Petrie, No. 265) as attacked by the Khabiri.
LlTKRATTRll.— Robineon. BRP^ Ul. 163; Guirin, Judie, U. 16 ff. : liawleker. Pal.' 163 ; O. A. Smith, HQHL 218 ; Buhl, GAP 90, 195. J. A. SELBIE.
ZORITES.— See ZORAH.
ZOROASTRIANISM.— An account of the ancient
religion of Iran, the religion of the Parsis at the present day, finds its place in a Bible Dictionary,
not because of direct references to it in the Bible Mhich need elucidation, — for these are exceedingly few, — but because of the widely-held opinion that some of the most important later developments of Judaism were profoundly affected by contact with Persian beliefs. The developments in question affect Angelologv. Demonology, and the doctrine of the Resurrection. lu the present article only that will be described which directly concerns the parallel phenomena in the religion of Israel.
1. The Mazilayasna ('worship of Mazda') is variously known as Mazdeism, Zoroastriani.sm, or Parsism. Its basis is the worship of a supreme deity, Ahura Slazddh, or Onnazd ('the Lord WiMlom '), beneath w horn stand six higidy ab- stract archangels called Am-ihrmpands (Amesha Spcnta, 'immortal holy ones'), and a large num- ber of angels (yazata), who are mostly nature- powers dethroned from the divine position tliey held in the days when the ancestors of Iranian and Indian tribes lived together as one people. The sacred book of the religion, the Avesta* con- tains some ancient hymns which appear to come from Zarathushtra, called by the tireeks Zupo- iarprii. He is probably to be regarded as a real person, the reformer to whom may plausibly be assigned the monotheistic doctrine of the religion, and the philosophic system w hich attempts to solve the problem of JEvil. This system involves an evil spirit, Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman ('destructive spirit '), who with his hosts of demons (dalva) pre- sides over all evU things in the world and wages war with Ahura and the good creation, till the time when evil will be finally destroj'ed. Among the most powerful of the good spirits are the 'fravashis of the pious.' A fravashi is part of a man's identity, dwelling in heaven but powerful to aid on earth. It belongs to good men past, present, and to come. It shares the fortunes of its earthly counterpart, when a living man ; and if that man becomes evil, it apparently ceases as a fravashi to be. The good Zoroastrian had a code of simple and generally high-toned morality to observe, hamjiered by a complicated and often extremely foolish ritual, which is probably to be laid to the account of alien priests who fastened on the religion during the later Acluemenian reigns. After death, the pious receive a blissful immortality with Ahura in the ' House of Song,' while the (/nti'a - worshippers are condemned to torment in the ' House of the Lie.' Ultimately the world is to be renewed under Snoshyant ('one who shall save ' — a being miraculously descended from Zoroaster), after purification by the ' ordeal of molten metal,' which will consume all that is evil.
2. Such is, in the barest outline, the faith of Zoroastrianism. The only other preliminary left for us to determine here is the date at which this system had penetrated countries inhabited by Jews. It is obvious that if Judaism owed any of its eschatology, or its doctrine of angels and demons, to this forei^ influence, Zoroastrianism must have been firmly established in Babylonia or Media before the Book of Daniel was written, and presumably generations before. The date of the Avesta is a warmly disputed question ; but for our present purpose this matters little, for the doctrines which find parallels in Judaism are uni- versally admitted to be earl}-, on the witness of classical writers, from Herodotus downwards. That