Smith's Bible Dictionary

Zina–Zophim

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Zina

(abundance); Zizah, the second son of Shimei the Gershonite. (1 Chronicles 23:10) comp. 1Chr 23:11

Zion

[Jerusalem]

Zior

(smallness), a town in the mountain district of Judah. (Joshua 15:54) It belongs to the same group with Hebron.

Ziph

(battlement), the name of two towns in Judah.

In the south, named between Ithnan and Telem. (Joshua 15:24) It does not appear again in the history, nor has any trace of has been met with. In the highland district, named between Carmel and Juttah. (Joshua 15:55) The place is immortalized by its connection with David. (1 Samuel 23:14,15,24; 26:2) These passages show that at that time it had near it a wilderness (i.e., a waste pasture-ground) and a wood. The latter has disappeared but the former remains. The name of Zif if, found about three miles south of Hebron, attached to a rounded hill of some 100 feet in height, which is called Tell Zif . Son of Jehaleleel. (1 Chronicles 4:16)

Ziphah

(feminine of Ziph), another son of Jehaleleel. (1 Chronicles 4:16)

Ziphim, The

the inhabitants of Ziph, 2. In this form the name is found in the Authorized Version only in the title of (Psalms 54:1) In the narrative it occurs in the more usual form of ZIPHITES. (1 Samuel 23:19; 26:1)

Ziphion

son of Gad (Genesis 46:18) elsewhere called Zephon.

Ziphran

(fragrance), appoint in the north boundary of the promised land as specified by Moses. (Numbers 34:9)

Zippor

(sparrow), father of Balak king of Moab. (Numbers 22:2,4,10,16; 23:18; Joshua 24:9; Judges 11:25) Whether he was the “former king of Moab” alluded to in (Numbers 21:26) we are not told. (B.C. 1451.)

Zipporah, Or Zipporah

daughter of Reuel or Jethro, the priest of Midian, wife of Moses and mother of his two sons Gershom and Eliezer. (Exodus 2:21; 4:25; 18:2) comp. Exod 18:6 (B.C. 1530.) The only incident recorded in her life is that of the circumcision of Gershom. (Exodus 4:24-28)

Zithri

(protection of Jehovah), properly Sithri; one of the sons of Uzziel the son of Kohath. (Exodus 6:22) In (Exodus 6:21) Zithri should be Zichri, as in Authorized Version of 1611.

Ziz

(the projection), The cliff of, the pass by which the horde of Moabites, Ammonites and Mehunim made their way up from the shores of the Dead Sea to the wilderness of Judah near Tekoa. (2 Chronicles 20:16) only; comp. 2Chr 20:20 It was the pass of Ain Jidy—the very same route which is taken by the Arabs in their marauding expeditions at the present day.

Ziza

(shining).

Son of Shiphi, a chief of the Simeonites in the reign of Hezekiah. (1 Chronicles 4:37) (B.C. about 725.) Son of Rehoboam by Maachah the granddaughter of Absalom. (2 Chronicles 11:20) (B.C. after 973.)

Zizah

a Gershonite Levite, second son of Shimei, (1 Chronicles 23:11) called Zina in ver. (1 Chronicles 23:10)

Zoan

(place of departure), an ancient city of lower Egypt, called Tanis by the Greeks. It stood on the eastern bank of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Its name indicates a place of departure from a country, and hence it has been identified with Avaris (Tanis, the modern San), the capital of the Shepherd dynasty in Egypt, built seven years after Hebron and existing before the time of Abraham. It was taken by the Shepherd kings in their invasion of Egypt, and by them rebuilt, and garrisoned, according to Manetho, with 240,000 men. This cite is mentioned in connection with the plagues in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it is the city spoken of in the narrative in Exodus as that where Pharaoh dwelt, (Psalms 78:42,43) and where Moses wrought his wonders on the field of Zoan a rich plain extending thirty miles toward the east. Tanis gave its name to the twenty-first and twenty-third dynasties and hence its mention in Isaiah. (Isaiah 19:13; 30:4) (The present “field of Zoan” is a barren waste, very thinly inhabited. “One of the principal capitals of Pharaoh is now the habitation of fishermen the resort of wild beasts, and infested with reptiles and malignant fevers.” There have been discovered a great number of monuments here which throw light upon the Bible history. Brugsch refers to two statues of colossal size of Mermesha of the thirteenth dynasty, wonderfully perfect in the execution of the individual parts and says that memorials of Rameses the Great lie scattered broadcast like the mouldering bones of generations slain long ago. The area of the sacred enclosure of the temple is 1500 feet by 1250.-ED.)

Zoar

(smallness), one of the most ancient cities of the land of Canaan. Its original name was Bela. (Genesis 14:2,8) It was in intimate connection with the cities of the “plain of Jordan”—Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, See also (Genesis 13:10) but not Genesis10:19 In the general destruction of the cities of the plain Zoar was spared to afford shelter to Lot. (Genesis 19:22,23,30) It is mentioned in the account of the death of Moses as one (of the landmarks which bounded his view from Pisgah, (34:3) and it appears to have been known in the time both of Isaiah, (Isaiah 15:5) and Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 48:34) These are all the notices of Zoar contained in the Bible. It was situated in the same district with the four cities already mentioned, viz. in the “plain” or “circle” of the Jordan, and the narrative of (Genesis 19:1)... evidently implies that it was very near to Sodom. vs. (Genesis 19:15; 23:27) The definite position of Sodom is, and probably will always be, a mystery; but there can be little doubt that the plain of the Jordan was at the north side of the Dead Sea and that the cities of the plain must therefore have been situated there instead of at the southern end of the lake, as it is generally taken for granted they were. [Sodom] (But the great majority of scholars from Josephus and Eusebius to the present of the Dead Sea.)

Zoba, Or Zobah

(station), the name of a portion of Syria which formed a separate kingdom in the time of the Jewish monarchs Saul, David and Solomon. It probably was eastward of Coele-Syria, and extended thence northeast and east toward, if not even to, the Euphrates. We first hear of Zobah in the time of Saul, when we find it mentioned as a separate country, governed apparently by a number of kings who owned no common head or chief. (1 Samuel 14:47) Some forty years later than this we find Zobah under a single ruler Hadadezer son of Rehob. He had wars with Toi king of Hamath, (2 Samuel 8:10) and held various petty Syrian princes as vassals under his yoke. (2 Samuel 10:19) David, (2 Samuel 8:3) attacked Hadadezer in the early part of his reign, defeated his army, and took from him a thousand chariots, seven hundred (seven thousand,) (1 Chronicles 18:4) horsemen and 20,000 footmen. Hadadezer’s allies, the Syrians of Damascus, were defeated in a great battle. The wealth of Zobah is very apparent in the narrative of this campaign. A man of Zobah, Rezon son of Eliadah, made himself master of Damascus where he proved a fierce adversary to Israel all through the reign of Solomon. (1 Kings 11:23-25) Solomon also was, it would seem engaged in a war with Zobah itself. (2 Chronicles 8:3) This is the last that we hear of Zobah in Scripture. The name however, is found at a later date in the inscriptions of Assyria, where the kingdom of Zobah seems to intervene between Hamath and Damascus.

Zobebah

(the slow), son of Coz, of the tribe of Judah. (1 Chronicles 4:8)

Zohar

(light).

Father of Ephron the Hittite. (Genesis 23:8; 25:9) (B.C. before 1860.) One of the sons of Simeon (Genesis 46:10; Exodus 6:15) called Zarah, Or Zerah, Zerah in (1 Chronicles 4:24)

Zoheleth

(serpent), The stone, This was “by En-rogel,” (1 Kings 1:9) and therefore, if En-rogel be the modern Um-ed-Deraj, this stone, “where Adonijah slew sheep and oxen,” was in all likelihood not far from the well of the Virgin.

Zoheth

son of Ishi of the tribe of Judah. (1 Chronicles 4:20)

Zophah

(a cruse) son of Helem or Hotham the son of Heber, an Asherite. (1 Chronicles 7:35,36)

Zophai

(descended from Zuph), a Kohathite Levite, son of Elkanah and ancestor of Samuel. (2 Chronicles 6:26) (11). In ver. 35 he is called Zuph.

Zophar

(sparrow), one of the three friends of Job. (Job 2:11; 11:1; 20:1; 42:9)

Zophim

(watchers), The field of, a spot on or near the top of Pisgah, from which Balaam had his second view of the encampment of Israel. (Numbers 23:14) The position of the field of Zophim is not defined. Possibly it is the same place which later in the history is mentioned as Mizpah-moab.