2 Kings 17:30

Succoth-benoth This name of the deity of the Babylonians is probably (according to Rawlinson Herod. bk. i. p. 630) meant to represent the Chaldæan goddess Zir-banit, the wife of Merodach (i.e.Bel) who was specially worshipped in Babylon.

Nergal The Assyrian or Babylonian god who answers to the classic Mars, the god of war. It is an argument for Cuthah being the place near Babylon between the Euphrates and the Tigris (see note on verse 24) that the city which stood there is found to have been specially devoted to Nergal, whose image we are here told was set up in Samaria by the men of Cuth.

Ashima Jewish tradition explains this name as signifying a short-haired goat. Hence it has been thought that the divinity so called was a sort of oriental Pan, a god of shepherds and of the woods. But others think that in the name there is a trace of the Phœnician god Esmûn, who answers to Æsculapius, the deity that presided over medicine.