ASHIMA (Nryth.:;, 2 Kings xvii. 30; Sept.
Ac-140) is only once mentioned in the Old Testa ment as the god of the people of Hamath. The Babylonian Talmud, in the treatise ' Sanhedrin' (cited in Carpzov's Apparatus, p. 516), and the majority of Jewish writers, assert that Ashima was worshipped under the form of a goal without wool; the Talmud of Jerusalem says, under that of a lamb. Elias Levita gives the word the sense of ape; in which he was, in all probability, deceived by the resemblance in sound to the Latin sirnia, and other fanciful conjectures have been proposed. The opinion, however, that this idol had the form of a goat appears to be the one best supported by argu ments as well as by authorities. Thus Pfeiffer (in his Dubia Vexata, ad loc.) suggests that ashima may be brought into relation with the word rinvN, which the Samaritan version uses in the sense of some species of goat, as a translation of the original i in Dent. xiv. 5. On this ground we might conjecture that the word ashima actually means a goat without wool, by deriving it from nt;t4, which, though it usually signifies to be guilty, yet occurs in the sense of to be laid waste, to be bare, as a cog nate of Cit:IN and tne: so that ashima would mean bare, bald. Besides, as a goat, the Egyptian god
Mendes would afford an excellent parallel to Ash ima; as likewise the Greek Pan (cf. Lev. xvii. 7).* It is worthy of mention that the name of this idol furnished Aben Ezra with an opportunity of displaying the inveterate hatred of the Jews against the Samaritans. In his preface to the book of Esther, he asserts that the Samaritan text of Gen.
begins with the words, In the beginning Ashima created.' It need hardly be said that there is no trace of this reading either in the Samaritan text or version. Aben Ezra's own words are cited at length in Hottinger's Exercit. Antintorin., p. 40. J. N.