Sepharvaim

We read (Gen. x. 30.) of an antient mount in the east called Sephar - - and it is probable that the Sepharvaims were of this land; but from whence the name is, it is difficult to say. Sepher means book, or scribe; but we know of no writings or books before Moses. When Shalmeneser, king of Assyria, had besieged Samaria, and carried away the children of Israel captive, we are told that he brought men from Sepharvaim and other places, and put them in Samaria. (See 2 Kings 17. 24.) But what is most worthy our notice is, that inthe Lord’s displeasure with Israel he should not only cause his people to be led into captivity, but Samaria to be inhabited by idolaters. Those Sepharvites, We are told, burnt their children in the fire to their dunghill idol. (See 2 Kings 17. from 24. to the end, which is an interesting record.)

I hope the reader will, make a suitable application from this affecting account. The Lord hath promised that his church, which is founded upon a rock, shall never be removed, neither shall the gates of hell prevail against it; but he hath no where promised that that church shall be confined to any nation or kingdom. The golden candlestick is a moveable furniture in the Lord’s house; and the Lord hath said to a sinful land that he will come unto it quickly, and remove their candlestick out of his place." The Lord Jesus said this tothe once flourishing church of Ephesus; and the Lord fulfilled the awful threatening. For where is now that church? yea, where are now the seven flourishing, churches of Asia? Alas! there is not a vestige of either remaining. And they are now the huts of a few miserable fishermen the ignorant followers of Mahometan superstition. (Rev. 2: and 3:throughout.) Oh, that the Lord may raise up a praying seed to wrestle with him night and day for our sinful land!

a country of Assyria, 2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 17:31. This province cannot now be exactly delineated in respect to its situation. The Scripture speaks of the king of the city of Sepharvaim, which probably was the capital of the people of this name, 2Ki 19:13; Isa 37:13.

Sepharva´im, a city of the Assyrian Empire, whence colonists were brought into the territory of Israel, afterwards called Samaria (2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13; Isa 36:19; Isa 37:13). The place is probably represented by Sipphara in Mesopotamia, situated upon the east bank of the Euphrates above Babylon.

When Shalmaneser king of Assyria carried away Israel from Samaria to beyond the Euphrates, he sent people in their stead into Palestine, among whom were the Sepharvaim, 2Ki 17:24,31 . That Sepharvaim was a small district under its own king, is apparent from 2Ki 19:13 ; Isa 37:13 . It may, with most probability, be assigned to Mesopotamia, because it is named along with other places in that region, and because Ptolemy mentions a city of a similar name, Sipphara, as the most southern of Mesopotamia.\par

Sepharva’im. (the two Sipparas). Sepharvaim is mentioned, by Sennacherib, in his letter to Hezekiah, as a city whose king had been unable to resist the Assyrians. 2Ki 19:13; Isa 37:13. Compare 2Ki 18:34. It is identified with the famous town of Sippara, on the Euphrates above Babylon, which was near the site of the modern Mosaib. The dual form indicates that there were two Sipparas, one on either side of the river. Berosus celled Sippara, "a city of the sun"; and in the inscriptions, it bears the same title, being called Tsipar sha Shamas, or "Sippara of the Sun" -- the sun being the chief object of worship there. Compare 2Ki 17:31.

From southern Ava, Cuthah, and Hamath, the Assyrian king brought colonists to people Samaria, after the ten tribes were deported (2Ki 17:24). Rabshakeh and Sennacherib (2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13) boastingly refer to Assyria’s conquest of Sepharvaim as showing the hopelessness of Samaria’s resistance (Isa 36:19): "where are the gods of Hamath ... Sepharvaim? have they (the gods of Hamath and Sepharvaim) delivered Samaria out of my hand?" How just the retribution in kind, that Israel having chosen the gods of Hamath and Sepharvaim should be sent to Hamath and Sepharvaim as their place of exile, and that the people of Hamath and Sepharvaim should be sent to the land of Israel to replace the Israelites! (Pro 1:31; Jer 2:19).

Sepharvaim is Sippara, N. of Babylon, built on both banks of Euphrates (or of the canal nahr Agane), from whence arises its dual form, -aim, "the two Sipparas." Above the nahr Malka. The one Sippara was called Sipar-sa-samas, i.e. consecrated to Samas "the sun god"; the other, Sipar-sa-Anunit, consecrated to "the goddess Anunit". The Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the "male and female powers of the sun"; on the monuments Sepharvaim is called "Sepharvaim of the sun."(See ADRAMMELECH; ANAMMELECH.)

Nebuchadnezzar built the old temple, as the sacred spot where Xisuthrus deposited the antediluvian annals before entering the ark, from whence his posterity afterward recovered them (Berosus Fragm. 2:501; 4:280). Part of Sepharvaim was called Agana from Nebuchadnezzar’s reservoir adjoining. Sepharvaim is shortened into Sivra and Sura, the seat of a famed Jewish school. Mosaib now stands near its site. The name Sippara means "the city of books." The Berosian fragments designate it Pantibiblia, ("all books"). Here probably was a library, similar to that found at Nineveh, and which has been in part deciphered by G. Smith and others.

[Sepharva’im]

Place conquered by Assyria, and from whence people were sent to colonise Samaria. 2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 17:31; 2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13; Isa 36:19; Isa 37:13. Identified with Sippara , on the Euphrates, 33° 5’ N, 44° 15’ E.

SEPHARVAIM.—1. A city mentioned in 2Ki 18:34 (Isa 36:19) and Isa 19:13 (Isa 37:13) as among those captured by the Assyrians, all apparently in Syria. Probably it answers to the Shabara’in named in the Babylonian Chronicle as taken just before the fall of Samaria. Sibraim of Eze 47:8 may then be the same city. 2. A word of exactly the same form as the above occurs in 2Ki 17:24-31 as the name of a place whose inhabitants were deported to Samaria. The context favours the supposition that the famous city Sippar in North Babylonia is intended. Probably the similarity between the words led some early copyist to write Sepharvaim by mistake.

J. F. McCurdy.

sef-ar-vā´im, sē-far-vā´im (ספרוים, ṣ^epharwayı̄m: Σεφφαρουάιμ, Sephpharouáim, Σεπφαρουάιμ, Seppharouáim, Σεπφαρούν, Seppharoún, Σεπφαρουμάιν, Seppharoumáin, Ἐπφαρουάιμ, Eppharouáim, Σεπφαρείμ, Sepphareı́m, the first two being the forms in manuscripts Alexandrinus and Vaticanus respectively, of the passages in Kings, and the last two in Isaiah):

1. Formerly Identified with the Two Babylonian Sippars:

This city, mentioned in 2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13; Isa 36:19; Isa 37:13, is generally identified with the Sip(p)ar of the Assyrians-Babylonian inscriptions (Zimbir in Sumerian), on the Euphrates, about 16 miles Southwest of Bagdad. It was one of the two great seats of the worship of the Babylonian sun-god Šamaš, and also of the goddesses Išhtar and Anunit, and seems to have had two principal districts, Sippar of Šamaš, and Sippar of Anunit, which, if the identification were correct, would account for the dual termination -ayim, in Hebrew. This site is the modern ‛Abu-Habbah, which was first excavated by the late Hormuzd Rassam in 1881, and has furnished an enormous number of inscriptions, some of them of the highest importance.

2. Difficulties of That Identification:

Besides the fact that the deities of the two cities, Sippar and Sepharvaim, are not the same, it is to be noted that in 2Ki 19:13 the king of Sepharvaim is referred to, and, as far as is known, the Babylonian Sippar never had a king of its own, nor had Akkad, with which it is in part identified, for at least 1,200 years before Sennacherib. The fact that Babylon and Cuthah head the list of cities mentioned is no indication that Sepharvaim was a Babylonian town - the composition of the list, indeed, points the other way, for the name comes after Ava and Hamath, implying that it lay in Syria.

3. Another Suggestion:

Joseph Halevy therefore suggests (ZA, II, 401 ff) that it should be identified with the Sibraim of Eze 47:16, between Damascus and Hamath (the dual implying a frontier town), and the same as the Šabara’in of the Babylonian Chronicle, there referred to as having been captured by Shalmaneser. As, however, Sabara’in may be read Samara’in, it is more likely to have been the Hebrew Shōm^erōn (Samaria), as pointed out by Fried. Delitzsch.

Literature.

See Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, I, 71 f; Kittel on K; Dillmann-Kittel on Isa, at the place; HDB, under the word