SUMMER (silm'mer). See PALESTINE.
SUN (Heb. sheh'mesh, to be brilliant), the great luminary which God created at the be ginning to govern the day.
Sunrise and sunset are the only defined points of time in the absence of artificial contrivances for telling the hour of the day. Between these two points the Jews recognized three periods, viz., when the sun became hot, about 9 a. m. (I Sam. xi:9 ; Nell. vii :3) ; the double light or noon (Gen. xliii :16 ; 2 Sam. iv:5), and "the cool of the day,' shortly before sunset (Gen. iii :8). The sun also served to fix the quarters of the hemisphere, east, west, north, and south, which were represented respectively by the rising sun. the setting sun (Is. xlv :6 ; 1:1), the dark quarter (Gen. xiii:t4; Joel ii :20), and the brilliant quarter (Dent. xxxiii :23 ; Joh xxxvii :17; Ezek. xl :24) ; or otherwise by their position relative to a person facing the rising sun—before, behind, on the left hand, and on the right hand (Job xxiii :8, 9).
The apparent motion of the sun is frequently referred to in terms that would imply its reality (Josh. x:13; 2 Kings xx ; Ps. xix :6 ; Eccles.
i :5 ; Flab. iii :ii).
It was the sun (Gen. i:14-16) which the Phoe nicians worshiped under the name of Baal, the Moabites under that of Chemosh, the Ammonites under that of Moloch, the Israelites under that of Baal, and king of the host of heaven. Moses cau tioned the Israelites against this species of idola try (Dent. iv :19). In Deut. xvii :3, he condemns to death those perverted to worship strange gods, the sun, the moon, etc.; and Josiah took from the temple of the Lord the horses, and burned the chariots, which the kings his predecessors had consecrated to the sun (2 Kings xxiii:ti). Job says (xxxi :26-28). he looked on it as a great crime, and as renouncing the God that is above, to kiss his hand in token of adoration, when he be held the sun in its beauty and splendor. Ezekiel
(viii :16) saw in the Spirit, in the temple of the Lord, five and twenty men of Judah, who turned their backs on the sanctuary, and had their faces towards the east, worshiping the rising sun. Worship of the Sun. When the Hebrews came into Canaan they encountered many forms of idolatry connected with sun worship, and before they left Egypt they must have known of this form of idolatry, which had its chief seat at On (Gen. xli :45). The Arabians appear to have worshiped the sun without the intervention of any idol (Job xxxi :26, 27). It is doubtful if it was adopted by the Jews as a form of worship during their early history, but later it became of some importance, judging from the fact that the horses were kept in the precincts of the Temple (2 Kings xxiii ).
Figurative. The sun furnishes the greater part of the noble similitudes used by the sacred authors, who, to represent great public calamity, speak of the sun as being obscured, etc. (see Is. xiii :to; xxiv :23 ; Jer. xv :9 ; Ezek. xxxii :7; Joel ii :31; Amos viii :9). To express a long continu ance of anything glorious and illustrious, it is said, it shall continue as long as the sun. So the reign of the Messiah (Ps. lxxii:t7 ; ixxxix:36), under whose happy dominion the light of the moon shall equal that of the sun, and that of the sun be seven times more than ordinary (Is. xxx : 26). Christ is called the Sun of righteousness (Mal. iv:2). It is also used figuratively of Christ's glory (Matt. xvii :2 ; Rev. i:16; x:1) ; of supreme rulers (Gen. xxxvii :9).