SI'NIM. A land mentioned in Isaiah xlix. 12. From the connection it is evident that a country in the Far North or East is intended; conse quently the Pluenician Sinim (Genesis x. 17) cannot be considered. The oldest creek version rendered 'the land of the Persians:' Aquila, Theo 'lotion. and Symmaehus transliterated the He brew as Sinrin, the Syriac as Senyam. Jerome and the Aramaic Targum translated 'the South Land.' Arias Montanus was the first to sug gest China, and has had many followers. But it has been shown, particularly by Terrien de Lacouperie, that this is impossible. As the ter ritories of Tsin and Thien on the Hoang-ho in the north cannot have been intended, the name Tsin for China can only be the designation de rived from the Tsin dynasty, which came upon the throne in u.c. 255. This was indeed rendered (Sin by Ptolemy (vii. 3), but Syrians and Arabs always transcribe it as Zin, and that would have been the probable pronunciation among the He brews. As this passage may have been written as early as B.C. 540, the Chinese Tsin cannot have
been meant. Nor is Shina at the foot of Hindu kush, proposed by De Lacouperie, more probable.
Sandia thought of Sin (Pelusium in Egypt) and he has been followed by Bochart and Ewald. DiIlmann thought of the wilderness of Sin (Ex. xvi. 1) and the mountain of Sinai. J. D. Aliehaelis and Doederlein first proposed and Klostermann. Cheyne, Duhm, and Marti have adopted the explanation of the land of Sinim' as Southern Egypt from Syene (Assuan, (is.). Clieyne reads Smeanim. That there were dis persed Jews in the region in B.C. 540 is. however, difficult to prove. The Greek version suggests that the text originally had a name for Persia or Aledia. A later copyist may have thought of Genesis x. 17. Consult: Terrien de Lacouperie, Babylonian and Oriental Record (London, 1886) ; and the commentaries on Isaiah by Dillmann (Leipzig, Dnhm (Giittingen, 1892), Mar ti (Tlibingen 1900), and Cheyne (New York, 1898).