Succoth-benoth or Succoth Benoth () was a Babylonian deity, one of the gods brought to the

Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) The Kingdom of Israel ( ), also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an History of ancient Israel and Judah, Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the firs ...

during the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

. In the ninth year of

Hoshea Hoshea (, ''Hōšēaʿ'', "salvation"; ''A'úsiʾ'' 'a-ú-si-ʾ'' ) was the nineteenth and last king of the northern Kingdom of Israel (or a puppet king) and son of Elah (not the Israelite king Elah). William F. Albright dated his reign to ...

, "the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes", resettling large numbers of population. (2 Kings 17:6) The "men" from each of these five cities set up their gods in the shrines of the land, mixing it with the worship of

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

. "The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men of

Cuthah Kutha, Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha (, Sumerian: Gû.du8.aki, Akkadian: Kûtu), modern Tell Ibrahim (also Tell Habl Ibrahlm) (), is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. The site of Tell Uqair (possibly ancient Urum) is just to the north. ...

made

Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; ) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations indicating that his cult surv ...

, the men of

Hama Hama ( ', ) is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is one o ...

th made

Ashima Ashima (; ) is an ancient Semitic goddess. Ancient Middle East Ashima was a West Semitic goddess of fate related to the Akkadian goddess Shimti ("fate"), who was a goddess in her own right but also a title of other goddesses such as Damkina an ...

, the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites ...

Adrammelech Adrammelech (; ''Adramélekh'') is an ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic god mentioned briefly by name in the Books of Kings, Book of Kings, where he is described as a god of "Sepharvaim". Sepharvaim (a word which is dual (grammatical nu ...

and

Anammelech Anammelech ( ''ʿAnammelekh''), according to the Hebrew Bible,2 Kings 17:31 was a Syrian and Mesopotamian deity worshipped alongside Adrammelech. He is a lunar deity and is said to have been worshipped at Sepharvaim, an Assyrian town. Although so ...

." (

2 Kings The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of ancient Israel also including ...

17:30-31) The Bible says that these deities were idols, although the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

were not punished because they worshipped the God of the Israelites as well. The identity of Succoth-benoth is unknown. Hayim Tawil noted that ''Bànitu'' ( Akkadian: 𒁀𒉌𒌈 Ba.ni.TUM, "the female creature") was an epithet of

Ishtar Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...

Nineveh Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...

, and postulated the name "Succoth-benoth" was a Hebrew rendition of a Neo-Babylonian or Neo-Assyrian divine name meaning "the image of Bànitu".Hayim Tawil, ''An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew'', p. 462. According to b.

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic , a loanword from , 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 70 elders, existing at both a local and central level i ...

, Succoth Benoth was a hen; according to the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

, Avoda Zara, a hen and her chicks, thus associating this god with the astrological constellation

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

. According to commentators, either ''sukkot'' is a foreign word for "hen" and the phrase means "hen of chicks" or the entire phrase is a foreign word for "hen".

Marcus Jastrow Marcus Jastrow (June 5, 1829 – October 13, 1903) was a Poland-born American Talmudic scholar and rabbi, most famously known for his authorship of the popular and comprehensive ''Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Mid ...

proposed that the phrase is native to Hebrew and should be read "covering the young".

References

{{Reflist Deities in the Hebrew Bible Mesopotamian deities