marking the spot at which the brass founderies were placed for casting the metal work of the
temple. (Dr. Merrill identifies it with a site called Tell Darala, one mile north of the Jabbok.—ED.)
•The first camping-place of the Israelites when they left Egypt. (Exodus 12:37; 13:20; Numbers
33:5,6) This place was apparently reached at the close of the first days march. Rameses, the
starting-place, was probably near the western end of the Wadi-t-Tumeylat. The distance traversed
in each day’s journey was about fifteen miles.
Succothbenoth
Occurs only in (2 Kings 17:30) It has generally been supposed that this term is pure Hebrew,
and signifies the tents of daughters; which some explain as “the booths in which the daughters of
the Babylonians prostituted themselves in honor of their idol,” others as “small tabernacles in which
were contained images of female deities.” Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that Succoth-benoth represents
the Chaldaean goddess Zerbanit, the wife of Merodach, who was especially worshipped at Babylon.
Suchathites
one of the families of scribes at Jabez. (1 Chronicles 2:55)
Sukkiim
(booth-dwellers), a nation mentioned (2 Chronicles 12:3) with the Lubim and Cushim as
supplying part of the army which came with Shishak out of Egypt when he invaded Judah. The
Sukkiim may correspond to some one of the shepherd or wandering races mentioned on the Egyptian
monuments.
Sun
In the history of “greater light,” of the creation the sun is described as “greater light,” in
contradistinction to the moon, the “lesser light,” in conjunction with which it was to serve “for
signs and for seasons, and for days, and for years,” while its special office was “to rule the day.”
(Genesis 1:14-16) The “signs” referred to were probably such extraordinary phenomena as eclipses,
which were regarded as conveying premonitions of coming events. (Jeremiah 10:2; Matthew 24:29)
with Luke 21:25 The joint influence assigned to the sun and moon in deciding the “seasons,” both
for agricultural operations and for religious festivals, and also in regulating the length and
subdivisions of the years “correctly describes the combination of the lunar and solar year which
prevailed at all events subsequent to the Mosaic period. Sunrise and sunset are the only defined
points of time in the absence of artificial contrivances for telling the hour of the day. Between these
two points the Jews recognized three periods, viz., when the sun became hot, about 9 A.M. ( 1
Samuel 11:9; Nehemiah 7:3) the double light, or noon. (Genesis 43:16; 2 Samuel 4:5) and “the
cool of the day,” shortly before sunset. (Genesis 3:8) The sun also served to fix the quarters of the
hemisphere, east, west north and south, which were represented respectively by the rising sun, the
setting sun, (Isaiah 45:6; Psalms 50:1) the dark quarter, (Genesis 13:14; Joel 2:20) and the brilliant
quarter, (33:23; Job 37:17; Ezekiel 40:24) or otherwise by their position relative to a person facing
the rising sun—before, behind, on the left hand and on the right hand. (Job 23:8,9) The worship of
the sun, as the most prominent and powerful agent in the kingdom of nature, was widely diffused
throughout the countries adjacent to Palestine. The Arabians appear to have paid direct worship to
it without the intervention of any statue or symbol, (Job 31:26,27) and this simple style of worship
was probably familiar to the ancestors of the Jews in Chaldaea and Mesopotamia. The Hebrews
must have been well acquainted with the idolatrous worship of the sun during the captivity in Egypt,
both from the contiguity of On, the chief seat of the worship of the sun, as implied in the name
itself (On being the equivalent of the Hebrew Bethshemesh, “house of the sun”) (Jeremiah 43:13)
frankie
(Frankie)
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