SUCCOTH:
- 1. The first stopping-place of the Israelites on their way out of Egypt (Ex. xii. 37, xiii. 20; Num. xxxiii. 5 et seq.); probably the Egyptian Thuku, name of the district of Pithom and also of the fortress itself (see Ebers in "Zeit. für Egyptische Sprache und Altertum," 1885, p. 49).
- 2. City in Palestine east of the Jordan, in the territory of Gad (Joshua xiii. 27). The name (="huts") is derived from Jacob's settling there on his return from the country of the Arameans. Jacob came from Penuel; while Gideon, pursuing the Midianites from the west, reached first Succoth and then Penuel (Judges viii. 5 et seq., 14 et seq.). Succoth, therefore, was nearer to the Jordan (comp. Judges viii. 4 et seq.). It lay in the valley, according to Joshua xiii. 27. The "valley of Succoth" mentioned in Ps. lx. 8 (A. V. 6), cviii. 8 (A. V. 7) is, therefore, the valley of the Jordan at Succoth. Jerome says, in a comment on Gen. xxxiii. 17, that Sukkoy belongs to the territory of Scythopolis (Baisan). Hence it probably lay north, not south, of the Jabbok (=Nahr al-Zarḳa). According to the Talmud, it was subsequently called Tar'ala (comp. Neubauer, "G. T." 1868, p. 248); and S. Merill identifies the place and the Talmudic name with the artificial hill Der Allah, 20 meters high, and somewhat to the north of the place where the Jabbok emerges from the mountains and seeks the plain (Merill, "East of the Jordan," 1881, p. 387). But this does not agree with the statements of Eusebius. This Succoth is identical with that mentioned in I Kings vii. 46 and II Chron. iv. 17. According to these passages, Hiram's foundry, in which he cast the vessels for the Temple, lay between Succoth and Zeredah in the valley of the Jordan.E. G. H. I. Be.
