Ṣaphon
/ˈsɑː.fɔn/noun
A transliteration of the Hebrew word for “north,” also used as the name of the sacred mountain associated with the Canaanite storm god Baal.
Did you know?In Ugaritic mythology, Mount Ṣaphon was Baal’s divine dwelling, and biblical references to “the north” may preserve echoes of this older sacred geography.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic
*ṣ-p-n
“A root associated with hiding, concealing, or being hidden”
Late Bronze Age
Ugaritic
Ṣapānu
“Mount Ṣapānu, the sacred mountain and dwelling of the storm god Baal”
Ancient Hebrew
Hebrew
צָפוֹן (ṣāphōn)
“North; the hidden or remote direction”
Septuagint era
Greek
Βορρᾶς (Borrhās)
“North; a Greek translation of the Hebrew directional term”
Biblical and classical scholarship
English
Zaphon
“The traditional English transliteration of the Hebrew sacred place-name”
Modern English
English
Ṣaphon
“A scholarly transliteration preserving the Hebrew emphatic consonant ṣ”
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