Bible dictionaries
Zuph
What Bible dictionaries say about “Zuph”, one article after the other.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Zuph - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)
Honeycomb, a Kohathite Levite, ancestor of Elkanah and Samuel (1 Sam. 1:1); called also Zophai (1 Chr. 6:26).
Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
The article in Easton + Webster 1828International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)
zuf (tsuph, "honeycomb"):
(1) According to 1Sa 1:1 b; 1Ch 6:35 (Hebrew verse 20) = "Zophai" of 1Ch 6:26 (11), an ancestor of Elkanah and Samuel. But Budde and Wellhausen take it to be an adjective, and so read tsuphi, in 1Sa 1:1 b: "Tohu a Zuphite, an Ephraimite." It should probably be read also in 1:1a: "Now there was a certain man of the Ramathites, a Zuphite of the hill-country of Ephraim," as the Hebrew construction in the first part of the verse is otherwise unnatural. The Septuagint's Codex Alexandrinus has Soup; Lucian has Souph in 1Sa 1:1 b; 1Ch 6:26 (11); Codex Vaticanus has Souphei; Codex Alexandrinus and Lucian have Souphi; 6:35 (20), Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus have Souph; Lucian has Souphi; and the Kethibh has tsiph.
(2) The Septuagint's Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus have Seiph; Lucian has Sipha, "the land of Zuph," a district in Benjamin, near its northern border (1Sa 9:5).
David Francis Roberts
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2
The article in ISBE 1915Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Additional entry
(honeycomb), The land of, a district at which Saul and his servant arrived after passing through the possessions of Shalisha, of Shalim and of the Benjamites. (1 Samuel 9:5) only. It evidently contained the city in which they encountered Samuel, ver. 6, and that again was certainly not far from the "tomb of Rachel." It may perhaps be identified with Soba, a well-known place about seven miles due west of Jerusalem.William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3
The article in Smith