GOZAN: The name of a country mentioned five times in the Old Testament (II Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11, xix. 12; I Chron. v. 26; Isa. xxxvii. 12). The passage in Chronicles refers to the deportation of a part of the inhabitants of Naphtali by Tiglathpileser IV., but the parallel passage (II Kings xv. 29) makes no definite statement as to the portion of the Assyrian empire to which they were taken. The more definite statement in Chronicles must have come from II Kings xvii. 6. It has suffered in transmission, and contains the unintelligible word hara (E.V. "Hara"), which is probably a corruption of the expressions "cities of the Medes" or "mountains of the Medes" (so the Septuagint). The first two passages in Kings refer to the fall of Samaria and the deportation of a part of its inhabitants by Sargon II. in 722 B.C. and following years. In the A.V. an error in the translation of the Hebrew makes the passages read "in Habor by the river of Gozan," which is corrected by the American edition of the R.V. so that "Habor" is seen to be the name of the river of Gozan. The Septuagint reads erroneously "rivers" of Gozan. The remaining two passages are parallel (II Kings xix. 12 = Isa. xxxvii. 12) and enumerate Gozan, with Haran and Rezeph, among the conquests of the Assyrians.

As early as Bochart (Gegraphica Sacra, Caen, 1646) Gozan was correctly identified with the Gauzanitis of Ptolemy, situated between the Chaboras (the modern Khabur, Biblical "Habor") and the Saocoras, which can no longer be identified. The modern name of Gauzanitis is Kaushan. The Assyrian literature gives numerous references to a city Guzana, which was first attacked in 809 B.C. by Adad-nirari III. From that time it may be regarded as a part of Assyria, for it supplied eponyms to the realm, though it had to be reduced to subjection by Asshurdon III. in 759-758 B.C. An Assyrian geographical list mentions Guzana and Nasibina side by side (II Rawlinson, 53, 43a) and it has been inferred (by Alfred Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, Leipsic, 1906, p. 545, note 1) that Guzana and Nasibina (i.e., Nisibis) are the same place. It is extremely interesting to find Samaria and Guzana named together in an Assyrian letter or report (K. 1366; cf. Bezold's catalogue and Jeremias in Hauck-Herzog, RE, vi. 767). All the allusions to Guzana as a city and a district in Assyrian texts are satisfied by the location in the valley of the Euphrates between the Khabur and the Balikh, and this location also exactly fits the requirements of the Biblical passages. The country was well watered, and in ancient times doubtless fertile and well tilled.

Robert W. Rogers.

Bibliography: Besides the literature named in the text, consult: F. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 184, Leipsic, 1881; Schrader, KAT, pp. 48, 168, 269, 273; DB, ii. 253; EB, ii. 1916.