soo'-fa (suphah, for wahebh becuphah; Septuagint reads ten Zoob ephlogise; the King James Version Rea Sea): Suphah is the region in which Vaheb is situated (Numbers 21:14). It is probably identical with Suph of Deuteronomy 1:1. Tristram (Land of Moab, 50) suggested identification with Ghor es-Safiyeh, a small oasis East of the mud fiats of Es-Sebkhah, South of the Dead Sea; but "the sibilants do not correspond, and Safiyeh is a specifically Arabic term (Wetzstein in Delitzsch, Gen4, 586, note 2) which does not seem to be a likely explanation of Suphah" (Gray, "Numbers," ICC, 285). This, and other questions of identification, must wait for solution until a more thorough exploration of the whole district has been accomplished.

W. Ewing