Bible Lexicons

סִינִי [Sinite], pr.n.

(1) of a nation near Mount Lebanon, Genesis 10:17; 1 Chronicles 1:15 where Strabo (xvi. 2, § 18, p. 756, Casaub.) mentions the town of Sinna, Jerome (Quæst. Heb. in Genesin) Sinen, Breidenbach (in Itinerario, fol. 1486, p. 47), a village, Syn. See Michaëlis, Spicileg. Geogr. Ext. tom. ii. p. 27.-More difficult is

(2) אֶרֶץ סִינִים Isaiah 49:12 the context requires that this must be a very remote country, to be sought for either in the eastern or southern extremities of the world. I understand it to be the land of the Seres or Chinese, Sinenses; this very ancient and celebrated nation was known by the Arabians and Syrians by the name صين, جيب, ܨܺܝܢܳܝܶܐ, and might be known by a Hebrew writer living at Babylon, when it was almost the metropolis of Asia. [But this occurs in Isaiah, a book written in Judea; the place where written does not, however, affect the argument as to whether the Chinese be intended or not; the Spirit of God knows all nations and their names, present and future; and just as he could speak beforehand of Josiah and Cyrus, so he could of the Chinese]. At what period this name was given to the Chinese, by the other nations of Asia, and what its origin may be, do not plainly appear. The Chinese themselves do not know the name, and even seem to be wholly destitute of any ancient domestic designation, adopting either the name of the reigning dynasty, or else lofty titles of honour, such as Dshung-kue-dshin, the citizens of the kingdom which is in the middle of the earth. As to the origin of the name, if their opinion be correct who suppose that the Chinese were so called from the dynasty of Thsîn, who reigned from the year 246, a.c., and onward (see Du Halde, Descr. de la Chine, t. i. § 1; Abel-Remusat, Melanges Asiatiques, ii. p. 334, seqq.), a Hebrew writer, contemporary with Cyrus [but Isaiah lived centuries before], would not make any mention of it; but (whatever be thought of the people Tshinas, mentioned in the laws of Menu) the authors of this opinion themselves concede, that the name of that dynasty might be known amongst foreign nations before it was in possession of the whole empire of China; nor, indeed, are we in want of other modes of explaining this name. In the Chinese language dshin denotes men; why then may not this name have been given to the Chinese by foreigners? for instance, by the Indians (amongst whom also, in the books of the Buddhists, mention is made of Dshina; see Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 358). This name may have been given to them as that by which they called themselves and all men. We have a similar instance in the Ethiopic pr.n. סְבָא and שְׁבָא i.q. ሰብእ፡ a man. Those who do not apply this to the Chinese, either understand it of the Pelusiotes (compare סִין), and by Synecd. the Egyptians, as Bochart, Phaleg. iv. 27, or the Syenites (compare סְוֵנֵה). LXX. γῆ Περσῶν.