Cuth, cuthah (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of the cities from which Sargon brought colonists to take the place of the Israelites whom he had deported from Samaria, B.C. 722 (2 K n"-"). The.se colonists intermingled with the Israelite inhabitants who were left by Sar- ^n ; and their descendants, the Samaritans, were in consequence termed by the Jews Cuthseans (D'fn;). According to the old Arabic geographers, Cutliah was .

situated not far from Babylon, and there seem to have been two cities of the same name close to each other (de Sacy, Chrest. Arab. i. 331). This view as to the site of Cuthah ia borne out by the Assyrian inscriptions, from which we learn that Kuti (or Kutu) was a city of Middle-Babylonia. It has now been identified with the modem Tell-Ibrdhim, N.E. of Babylon, where remains of the temple of Nergal (cf. v.") have been discovered (see Schrader, COT, i. 270 f.)

Cuthah has also been identified as the name of a country near Kurdistan, possibly = Ur Kasdim (Gn 11") — Neubauer, Giogr. p. 371) ; while others consider ' Cutheans ' to be another form of ' Cossseans,' a tribe dwellinjj in the Persian pro- vince Jutipa, the modem Kbuzistan, E. of the mouth of the Tigris. J. F. Stenninq. CUTHA (A Koved, B om., AV Coutha), 1 Ea S". — His sons were among the temple servants who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel.

There is no corresponding name in the lists of Ezra and Neh. The name may be taken from the Babylonian town Cuthah or Cuth (2 K 17"- *'). H St J Thackeray