Zuph

honeycomb, a Kohathite Levite, ancestor of Elkanah and Samuel ( 1 Samuel 1:1 ); called also Zophai ( 1 Chronicles 6:26 ).

that beholds

(honeycomb ), The land of, a district at which Saul and his servant arrived after passing through the possessions of Shalisha, of Shalim and of the Benjamites. ( 1 Samuel 9:5 ) only. It evidently contained the city in which they encountered Samuel, ver. 6, and that again was certainly not far from the "tomb of Rachel." It may perhaps be identified with Soba, a well-known place about seven miles due west of Jerusalem.

a Kohathite Levite, ancestor of Elkanah and Samuel. ( 1 Samuel 1:1 ; 1 Chronicles 6:35 ) In ( 1 Chronicles 6:26 ) he is called ZOPHAI.

ZUPH

zuf (tsuph, "honeycomb"):

(1) According to 1 Samuel 1:1 b; 1 Chronicles 6:35 (Hebrew verse 20) = "Zophai" of 1 Chronicles 6:26 (11), an ancestor of Elkanah and Samuel. But Budde and Wellhausen take it to be an adjective, and so read tsuphi, in 1 Samuel 1:1 b:

"Tohu a Zuphite, an Ephraimite." It should probably be read also in 1:1a: "Now there was a certain man of the Ramathites, a Zuphite of the hill-country of Ephraim," as the Hebrew construction in the first part of the verse is otherwise unnatural. The Septuagint's Codex Alexandrinus has Soup; Lucian has Souph in 1 Samuel 1:1 b; 1 Chronicles 6:26 (11); Codex Vaticanus has Souphei; Codex Alexandrinus and Lucian have Souphi; 6:35 (20), Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus have Souph; Lucian has Souphi; and the Kethibh has tsiph.

(2) The Septuagint's Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus have Seiph; Lucian has Sipha, "the land of Zuph," a district in Benjamin, near its northern border (1 Samuel 9:5).

David Francis Roberts