Zizah (Hastings' Dictionary)

A Gershonite Levite, 1 Ch 23". The name, prob. by a copyist's error, appears in v.'" as Zina (ij'')- LXX has in both verses Zifd. One Heb. MS, cited by Kennitott, also reads .ij'i in v.'». ZOAN dVi, Tdi-it, Tanis. The Coptic Jani re- sembles the Hebrew and the Arabic San, but a Christian Coptic MS, containing a list of bishops, bears witness to the Greek pronunciation with 7. [Amelineau, Gin(jrnphie dc VEqyj^fe, 1S93, p. 413 f.])

— A city of Egypt which the LXX bj- llicir render- ing identify witli the city known to the Greeks as Tanis. It is described by Greek writers as a ' great city' (Strabo, ildneke, c. 802; Stephauus Byzant. in iiis list of cities), and the branch of the Nile on which it was situated was called from it the Tan- aitic mouth.

The city declined in importance when the river which flowed by it ceased to be a main waterway ; and the surrounding country, which in ancient times was rich jjasture ground, is now salt marsh and lake. An insignilicant collection of dwellings (known as S.an on the Muiz canal), chiolly inhabited by lishermen who ply their trade on the neighbouring lake Menzaleh, marks the site of this once flourishing city. But widely scattered around are ruins which bear witness to its former greatness.

From very early times it was a centre of worship, and successive dynasties enriched the city with costly buildings and obelisks which (such is the opinion of these who have ex- plored the site) equ.-illed, perhaps in some respects surpassed, many of tlu temples which have been more fortunately preserved. The references to this city in Is. and Ezk. are in accord with the testimony of the monuments and of Greek writers.

Isaiah (19"- '^^ SO') describes it as the aljode of jirinces and counsellors, and Ezekiel (*.»") includes it in a list of the principal cities doomed to destruction. The note in Nu 1.3^ that ' Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt,' opens up a wide field of conjecture, but yields little by way of lertain inference.

Hebron was regarded as an ancient city, existing in the time of Abraham, and the note implies that Zoan also was an ancient city, built before the migration of the Hebrews into Egj'pt ; but wliether anything more (such as community of origin) is sugj^ested bv the comparison is doubtful. The question of ni'ist interest to the biblical student in conne.

xion with Z lan is: Was this city, already flourishing when Israel came into Egypt, in any way connected with their sojourn there T It is known that in E.xodus the name Zoan does not occur. Rameses is mentioned (Ex 12") as the place from which the chililren of Israel set out on their journeyings. But in 18 78, which recounts the womlers which God had wrought for Israel, ' the held of Zoan ' is twice mentioned (vv."-*) as the scene of the plagues.

The I'saliiiist may have used this expression as a poetical parallelism to ' the land of Egj'pt,' just as Isaiah places the ' princes of Zoan ' in parallelism with the ' counsellors of Pharaoh,' and the only inference to be drawn from the pa.ssage is that the Psalmist knew Zoan as a very important city. It is [)Ossible that the use of Zoan may lie due to a t^ailition not elsewhere preserved. Ebers [Diirc/i GosKn zum Hinai, p.

498) gives an inscription in which the words ' the field of Zoan ' occur. Brugscli asserts that Ramses II. transferred his court 10 Zoan, strengthened its fortifications and founded a new temple city ; that the place was called Pi liamessu, the city of Ramses, and that the new Pharaoh who ' knew not Joseph ' can lie no other than Ramses II. {Egypt under the Pharaohs, ii, 94, 96, 99). These statements if accepted go far towards locating the children of Israel at the time of their departure.

But Egypt- ologists do not agree in inturpreting the monu- mental evidence. In the articles PlTHOM and Ramese-S will be found the opinions of Naville and others who are not prepared .j .tdopt Brugsch's identification. This at least may be said of the site now occupied by San. Its posi- tion on the Nile, in or near to what was the land of Goshen, its known antiquity and import- ance, mark it out as a residence of the Ph.iraohs and a probable dwelling-place of Israel in bondage. A. T. Chapman.

ZOAR (lys, -il'is; LXX usually Z-qyup, but Gn 13'» 7joyopa, 3eT 48** Zoyop ; Vulg. always iScijor ; Jos Zoapa and Zoup). — The name of one of tlie 'cities of the Plain ' (or Oval ; Heb.

Kikkar : see Plain, 4), near the Dead Sea, mentioned in Gn 13'° 14, ' (where its former name is said to have been Held vh^), 19" (where its name is explained, by a popular etymology, as signifying ' littleness,' and it is said to have been spared, on account of its smallncss, at the time when the other ' cities of the Kikkar ' were destroyed), vv.

^^- "', Dt 34' (in Moses' view from Pisgah : ' and the Kikkar, the plain Ibikah ; Plain, 3] of Jericho, as far as Zo'ar'j, and as a city of Moab, Is 15», Jer 48'' (read'piob. with LXX [di'a77ei\oTe els Zoyopa], Ew., Graf, al. 'make a cry to be heard unto Zo'ar), v.**. These are all the biblical notices of Zo'ar. Though no place V)earing the name is at present known, it is, however, mentioned repeatedly by post-bibl. writers, down to the Middle Ages, as an important place lying at the S.

end of the Dead Sea. Jos. says that it was still called Zoup in his day {Ant. I. xi. 4), and states that the Dead Sea extended — as the context implies, from Jericho — for 580 stadia ' as far as Zoara [m^'xP' Zoapu;-] of Arabia' (BJ Vf. viii. 4). Euseb. {Ononi. 201) says that the Dead Sea lay between Jericho and Zoora ; and states (231, s.v. CaXa) that it had a Roman garrison, and that the bals.am and the palm still grew there, testifying to the ancient fertility of the locality. Ptolemy (v.

17. 5) speaks of it as be- longing to Arabia Petrtea ; Stepli. of Byz. calls it a Ku)fi7} fieydXi) ij <l>poi'pLov ; in the ecclesiastical Notitiw it is mentioned as an episcopal see in Pal.-ustina Tertia, which was represented at the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451 (Reland, Palwst. 215, 217, 223, '220, 1005 ; cf. '230). Under the name Zughar (Zughar, Sughar, .Sukar) it is often men- tioned by the mediaeval Arabic geographers (see Tuch, Genciis -, '280 f. ; or, more fully, Guy le Strange, Pal.

under the Moslems, 1890, 286-9U) as situated one degree S. of Jericho (Abul-feda), at the 'end of the Dead Sea,' in a hot and unhealthy vallej', but nevertheless an important commercial centre, capital of the province of esh-SheiAh or Edom (p. 39), a station on the great trade route between the Gulf of 'Akabah and Jericho, two daj's' journey from the latter place, and famous for its dates and indigo (cf. IIGIlL 500 f.)

* From its proximity to Zo'ar, the Dead Sea is often called by these writers the ' Lake of Zughar.' The Crusaders also mention 'Segor' (cf. the Vulg. above) as pleas- antly situated, with many ii.iliii trees, so tliat it was even called by them ' \illa I'.Uniarum ' and 'Palmer' (cf. Knob, on (!n 19-''''-^ [fuller than DUlm.l ; Rob. BliP ii. 517-9). As regards the precise position of Zo'ar, it was argued by Robinson {I.e.) that the notices of Jos. and Eus.

, though they implied that Zo'ar was near the S. end of the Dead Sea, did not neces.sarily fix it at that end ; and that as Jerome (on Is 15°) .says • Le strange shows very clearly that Merrill (K(U1 of Jord. 233) in iu errur in tayinic that the Arah. geo);ruphcra [lac« * Zughar at the H. end of the yea.

986 ZOAR ZOAR thai, Luhith was between Areopolis and Zo'ar, the most natural site for it would be (see the maps) at cl-Mezra'a, in the midst of a verdant stretch of woodland and pasture-ground beliinil the barren promontory el-Lisaii, just where tlie Wady Kerak, Mowing down from above the old citadel of Kerak, fertilizes the soil on the E. side of the Dead Sea.* The same site was adopted by Tuch (I.e. 281 f.)

Wetzstein, however, in an iniiiortant Excursus on Zo'ar at the end of Uelitzsch's Genesis* (1872), p. 564 If., pointed out that it was not consistent with the data : the media;val Zo'ar was one of the six stations on the usual caravan, route from Aila (Elath) by Hebron to Jerus.

: it was two days' journey from Aila to Ghamr el-'Arabah, two more to Zo'ar, and two more to Hebron : el-Mezra'a, as a glance at the map will at once show, is entirely out of tlie line of this route (for Tuch was in error in supposing that it passed along the E. side of the Dead Sea and crossed the Jordan by Jericho ; no road is possible along the E. side of the Sea) ; nor would the steep and narrow W.

Kerak be, as 'Tuch supposed, a practicable route for Baldwin's army to take when marching to the relief of Kerak, for a handful of men could have ettectually barred its progress (cf. Tristram, Moab, 65, 67-9, esp. 68). Pulclierius, moreover, accompanied Baldwin on an expedition from Jerus. to Petra, passing Hebron and Zo'ar on the way ; but again, if Zo ar was at elMezra'a, it would have taken them strangely out of their course.

Accordingly Wetzstein sup- poses with great plausibility that Zo'ar lay near the S.E. corner of the Dead Sea, in the verdant and tropically-wooded oasis, some 6 miles long by 1-3 broad (see Tristram's Map, and pp. 329 f., 333 f., Moab, 46 f., 50-52; Rob. ii. 113; Grove in Smith, DB iii. 1182, § 26; Gautier, Autour de la Mer Morte, 1901, p. 52 f.), fertilized by the waters of the Wady el- Ansa (' the W. of the sand-wells'), flowing down from the S.E.

, and called now, from the high and smooth sandstone-range risin" up behind it, the GhSr es-Sdfiijeh ('the Hollow of the Smooth (cliti)'). And an Arabic authority (Dim- ashki, c. 1300), ap. le Strange (p. 292), expressly places Zughar here. In the curious mosaic map of Pal., also, discovered in 1896 in a ba.silica at Mcdebali in Moab, and belonging probably to the 5tli or Gth cent. A.D., BAAAK [LXX for Beld] H KAI ZOOPA, with a palm-tree beside it, is placed clearly at the S.E.

corner of the Dead Sea.t On the South of ttie Dead Sea the ctiaracter of the soil is very different : there is here a large saline morass, ett-Sel/kha (above, p. 512'* note •), some 6 miles broad and 10 long, bounded on the N. half of its W. side by the cliffs of rock-salt called Jebet Usdum (vol. i. p. 575^, iij. 152), consisting of tine mud brou^jht down by the wadvs on the S.W. and S.

and mingled with drainin^s of the Jebel Usdura : this is entirely destitute of vegetation, and only passable with danger and ditticulty (see descriptions in KoU li. 112 ; Tristram, Laiid o/ Isr. 326-9 ; Gautier, op. cit. 48-52). The Wady Ghurundel divides the Sebkha from ttie Ghdr cs-Satiyeh. At present there is nothing in the Gh6r e?- Safiyeh but a wretched village of reed huts, en- closed by a reed stockade, with camps round about, inhabited by Bedawis (Tristram, 330; Gautier, 53 f.

, with views, 48, 56) ; anil Wetzstein (p. 56S f.) thinks that, from the climate, there could never have been a much more substantial place here ; but he points to a castle which may well have been the site of the (ppoijpiov mentioned in ancient times ; and per- haps the ancient Zo'ar stood in a higher and more healthy situation than the actual floor of the Ghdr (cf. the two ruins to the S.E. a little way up the W. el-Ahsd [Tristram, Mcah, 46-49]). • Tristram, Moab, 60, 64.

The map at the end of Tristram's Land of Itraet shows very distinctly the different fertile snuts on the shores of the Dead Sea. The elevations will be nest learned from O. A. Smith's large Topngr. and Phys. Map of Pat. t See Lagrange, La Mosaique giogr. dt Mddaba, in the Rev. Bibl., April 1S97, Map (ia which the Eait is at the top), and p. 17a. The usually accepted site of both ?o'ar and of the othei ' cities of the Ki/ckur' has been at the S. end of the Dead Sea; but it was argued by Mr.

(afterwards Sir G.) Grove in Sniith'i VB, 8. V. ' Zoar,' that they were at the North end of the Sea ; and this view has been followed since by Tristram (L. of }sr. 354 ff.), Conder (Tent-Work, 154, 207 f., 210), and other English writers (cf. above, arta. (Somorrah and SodomX The principal grounds upon which it is supported are (1) that in On 13'" Lot is said to have seen from near Bethel (v.

3) ' all the Kikkar of Jordan," and afterwards to have dwelt in the 'cities of the Kikkar,' whereas the S. end of the Dead Sea is not visible from near Bethel, and a plain situated there would not naturally be called the ' Plain of Jordan ' ; (2) that the S. end of the bead Sea is not visible from Nebo, as it is implied in Dt 34^ (quoted above) that ^i^o'ar was ; (3) that Gn 14?, which states that Chedorla'omer, coming up from ihe S.

, after smiting the Amalekites in Hazazon-tamar (- En-gedi, 2 Ch 202), proceeded to the Vale of Siddiin, implies that this vale, and consequently the cities of the Kikkar (which were near it), were at the N. end of the Sea. It is true, the language of Gn 1310- 11a.

12b does not seem to suggest that the narrator (J) pictured the part of the Kikkar, to which IjOl would naturally descend from Bethel, as separated from Sodom by the Dead Sea, with practically no passage along either shore : on the other hand, this conclusion is not necessary ; the narra- tive may well be condensed, and Lot may not then and there have directly ' moved his tent as far as Sodom.' The evidence that the po*f-bibL Zo ar wag at the S.

end of the Dead Sea clearly cannot be resisted : and in the case of what must anciently have been a well-known place, it seems scarcely likely that the Zo'ar of Josephus wa^ on a different site from the biblical Zo'ar.

Further, as regards (1), Kikkar does not mean ' Plain,' but * Round,' and it may thus have been applied to the entire basin in which both the lower Jordan and the Dead Sea lay, the ' Kikkar of the Jordan ' (Gn 1310- ", 1 K 7«) being in particular the part of it including the lower course of the Jordan : in Gn 13^0, also, it is not said that Lot saw the exact part of the KiJ:kdr in which the cities were (for 'all' must be an exaggeration, even if the cities were at the N.

end of the Dead Sea, since only a part of the plain there is discern- ihle from near Bethel); (2) the view described in Dt 34' ■•■* includes many points (as Dan) not actually visible from Nebo (Thomson, L. ana B. iii. 653), and v,8 implies naturally that Zo'ar was at some distance off, not a place at the foot of Nebo (Tell Sfta^fliur, Conder, Heth and Moah^, p. 154 f., 6 m. N.E.

of the Dead Sea, in spite of the facts that ShaghOr does not correspond jihoneti- cally to Zo'ar, and that Tell Shaghflr is not distinguishable from Has Siaghah, ib. p. 137); (3) the route from En-gedi to the N. end of the IJead Sea, whether inland (across a succession of steep wfidis ; Rob. i. 526-32) or alon^ the coast (by wading or clambering round promontories : Rob. i. 606 n. ; Tristram, Land of Isr, 252, 274, 278, ;?S4 f.) is much more impracticable for an amiv than that to its S.

end : according to others also. IJazazoD- tamar is not En-gedi at all, but the T.amar of Ezk 4719 4329, a village on the road between Elath and Hebron (Onom. 210X perhaps (Rob. ii. 202) JCumuf), 22 m. S.W. of the S. end of the Dead Sea. And, in fact, there are biblical data which, when considered carefully, appear to support the S. site.

To say nothing of Dt 34', just referred to, it is observable that Zo'ar is alwaj'S spoken of as a Monb- ite town, and never claimed as an Israelite or (Jos 13""-') Reubenite town, as it naturally would be if it lay at the N. end of the Sea; Ezk. also (16") describes Sodom as being on the ' right ' {i.e. the south) of Jems. (Samaria being on its ' left,' or north), which shows that he did not picture it at the N. end of the sea (which is due E. of Jerusalem). The S.

site is accepted by the great majority of recent authorities, as Knob., Del., Keil, Dillm. (on Gn 19-"), Riehm, H\\B; Sociu, ZBl'V, 1880, p. 81 ; Buhl, (li'ogi: 371 f., 274; G. A. Smith, Exjto)., Dec. lS9(i, p. 413. HGHL 678 (cf. 505-H); Clermont- Canneau, PEFSt. 1880, p. 20 ; Blaiickenhoru, ZI)J' V. 1896, p. 54f. (who gives further particulars). On the singular argument by which Homniel {AIIT 1U5-8) seeks to show that Bela' (Gn 14^ ^) is nieiitiuned in A>.syr. under the name Malhi, Malf/u, etc.

, see Johns (in the Expogitor, Aug.. 1.S1I8, pp. 15t'-60),*who shows that it reals upon a series of niiHreadings and niiRunderstandings. The site of Zo'ar carries with it the site of the other 'cities of the Kikkar,' which (Gn 19) may have formed a group by themselves, but cannot have been at any great distance from Zo'ar. Pro- vided, therefore, it may be assumed (see SiDDIM, Vale of) that in Abraham's time what is now the shallow S.

part of the Dead Sea was the ' Vale of Siddim,' and the morass es-Sebkha a fertile plain (like the present GhOr es-Satiyeh), it may reasonably be supposed that the other four cities were situated on this plain ; an earthquake, how- ZOBAH ZOHKLETII, THE STOXE 987 e^er, took place, producing on the one hand an eruption of petroleum, which, ijjniting, destroj-ed the four cities (Tristram. L. of Lir. 353 f.; Dawson, Egypt and Syria, p. 125 fT.)

, and on the other hand a subsidence of the soil, which caused the ' Vale of Siddim ' to be covered by the waters of the Dead Sea, and the plain on which the four cities were situateii to become the saline morass, now called esSebkha (cf. the descriptions of the site of the overthro\vn cities, 0129", Zeph 2' ; Is 13-«, Jer 49" =5i3«). S. R. Driver.