Zoan

2 definitions found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Zoan
     (Old Egypt. Sant= "stronghold," the modern San). A city on the
     Tanitic branch of the Nile, called by the Greeks Tanis. It was
     built seven years after Hebron in Palestine (Num. 13:22). This
     great and important city was the capital of the Hyksos, or
     Shepherd kings, who ruled Egypt for more than 500 years. It was


     the frontier town of Goshen. Here Pharaoh was holding his court
     at the time of his various interviews with Moses and Aaron. "No
     trace of Zoan exists; Tanis was built over it, and city after
     city has been built over the ruins of that" (Harper, Bible and
     Modern Discovery). Extensive mounds of ruins, the wreck of the
     ancient city, now mark its site (Isa. 19:11, 13; 30:4; Ezek.
     30:14). "The whole constitutes one of the grandest and oldest
     ruins in the world."
     
       This city was also called "the Field of Zoan" (Ps. 78:12, 43)
     and "the Town of Rameses" (q.v.), because the oppressor rebuilt
     and embellished it, probably by the forced labour of the
     Hebrews, and made it his northern capital.
     

From Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's) [hitchcock]:

  Zoan, motion