[418] 2 Kings xvii. 24. Comp. xviii. 34. Hence the later Jews comprehensively called the Samaritans Cuthites. Comp. 2 Kings xix. 13; Isa. xxxvii. 13.
[419] Heliopolis, Ptolemy, v. 18, § 7; Isa. xxxvi. 19. Here, according to the Chaldæan legends, Xisuthrus buried his tablets about the Creation, etc.
[420] From Ezra iv. 2 some infer that the main immigrants were introduced by Esarhaddon, who did not succeed till b.c. 681. He claims to have colonised Syria.
[421] So we see from 2 Kings xix. 13, which applies to the reign of Hezekiah.
[422] See Appendix, "The Golden Calves."
[423] He uses the agency of "the great and noble Asnapper" (Ezra iv. 10) for the deportation (see Botta, 145; Layard, Nin. and Bab., i. 148; Dr. Hincks, Jour. of Sacr. Lit., October 1858), unless Asnapper be a confusion for Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus).
[424] Hos. iii. 4.
[425] See Jer. xlix. 19, l. 44; Prov. xxii. 13, etc.
[426] Lit., "Daughter-huts" (Selden, De Dis Syr., ii. 7), but probably a transliteration. Zarpanit—"She who gives seed"—was Aphrodite Pandemos (Mylitta—Herod., i. 199). The Rabbis—who only guess—say she represented "the Clucking Hen"—i.e., the Pleiades. There does not seem to be any connection between Succoth and "Sakkuth," the various reading in Amos v. 26, which seems to be the Assyrian Moloch.
[427] Said to be worshipped under the form of a cock.