SIMONIS, conrector of the gymnasium, and professor of church history and antiquities in the university of Halle, was born loth Feb. 1698, and died 2d Jan. 1768. He was an excellent Hebraist. Besides an admirable edition of the He brew text of the O. T., often reprinted, he issued an Onomasticon V. T. 174i ; N. T. et Libb. V. T. apocryphorum, 1762 ; Lexicon Manuale Heb. et ld. 1752, 177i, re-edited by Eichhorn 1793, and again by Winer 1828.—W. L. A.
SIN (l'i?; Sept. Mats), a city of Egypt, vrhich is mentioned in Ezek. xxx. 15, 16, in connection with Thebes and Memphis, and is described as 4 the strength of Egypt,' showing it to have been a fortified place. The Sept. makes it to have been SaYs, but Jerome regards it as Pelusium. This latter identification has been generally adopted, and is scarcely open to dispute. Sin means mire,' and Pelusium, from the Greek fielos, has the same meaning, which is, indeed, preserved in the modem name Tineh, clay,' all doubtless derived from the muddy nature of the soil in the vicinity. Sir J. G. Wilkinson, however, supposes that the ancient native name more nearly resembled the PEREMOUN or PHEROMIS of the Copts ; and the latter is doubtless the origin of the Farama of the Arabs, by which it is still known. Pelusium was anciently
a place of great consequence. It was strongly forti fied, being the bulwark of the Egyptian frontier on the eastem side, and was considered the key,' or, as the prophet terms it, the strength' of Eg,ypt' (Hist. Bell. Alexand. pp. 20, 27 ; Liv. xlv. ; Joseph. Antiq. xiv. 8. ; De Bell. yud. i. 8. 7 ; i. 9. 3). It was near this place that Pompey met his death, being murdered by order of Ptolemy, whose protection he had claimed. It lay among swamps and morasses on the most easterly estuary of the Nile (which received from it the name of Ostium Pelusiacum), and stood twenty stades from the Mediterranean (Strabo, xvi. p. 76o ; xvii. So2 ; PIM. Hist. Nat. v. 11). The site is now only approachable by boats during a high Nile, or by land when the summer sun has dried the mud left by the inundation : the remains consist only of mounds and a few fallen columns. Tbe climate is very unwholesome. (Wilkinson's Mod. Egytt. 406, 444 ; Savary's Letters on Egytt, i. let. 24 ; Henniker's Travels).—J. K.