2 Kings 17:30, 31. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima. And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
1. The precise meaning of Succoth benoth is not known. Its literal signification is, “booths of the daughters”; and it is supposed to be, not the name of a god, but of places where women abandoned themselves to impure rites con fleeted with the worship of Babylonian deities. Sir H. Rawlinson believes that the word represents the Chaldee goddess Zir-banit, worshiped at Babylon and called queen of the place. Gesenins suggests that “perhaps it should read Succoth-bamoth, the booths in high places, consecrated to idols.”
2. Nergal was a well-known Assyrian deity. The word signifies “great mail” or “hero.” He is called by various names on the monuments: “the great brother”; “the storm ruler”; “the god of battles”; “the god of the chase.” The last is his principal title, and he seems to have been the chief patron of hunting, which fact has led some to believe that he represented the deified hero Nimrod. The name of Nergal often appears on Assyrian seals and cylinders, and his symbol was a man-lion, or human-headed lion with eagle’s wings. Astronomically, Nergal corresponds to Mars.
3. Ashima was a god of the people of Hamath. The majority of Jewish writers assert that this deity was worshiped under the form of a goat without wool; others say under the form of a lamb. The goat is found among sacred animals on Babylonian monuments. This would make Ashima correspond to the Egyptian Mendes and the Greek Pan. It is also supposed by some writers that Ashima was the same as the Phenician god Esmun, the Phenician Esculapius, to whom were also attributed the characteristics of Pan.
4. Nibhaz was a god of the Avites, but nothing is known with certainty of the peculiarities of the deity or the shape of the idol. The Hebrew interpreters say that the idol was in the form of a man with the head of a dog. The Egyptians worshiped the dog, and, according to some writers, their god Anubis was represented by a man with a dog’s head, though Wilkinson asserts that the head is that of a jackal. The family relation of the two animals is, however, sufficiently near for the purposes of idolatry.
Tartak was another Avite deity. Some Jewish writers suppose the idol to have been in the form of an ass; but others assert that this is mere conjecture, and that the name, which they render hero of darkness, haft, reference to some planet of supposed malign influence, such as Mars or Saturn.
Adrammelech was a god of the Sepharvites, and is supposed to be identical with Molech, for a description of which deity see note on Leviticus 18:21 (#163). Rawlinson identities Adrammelech with the Chaldean god San or Sansi.
7. Anammelech was also a god of the Sepharvites. No satisfactory etymology of the name has been found. Some suppose this deity to be represented by the Arabian constellation Cepheus, containing the shepherd and the sheep. Some authorities give the idol the figure of a horse, others that of a pheasant or a quail. Human sacrifices were offered to this god as well as to Adrammelech.