Sinim

See also: sinim, sínim, and síním

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Biblical Hebrew סִינִֽים.

Proper noun

Sinim

1. place mentioned in the Bible
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 49:11–12:

     And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

   • First Nephi 21:12, Book of Mormon:

     And then, O house of Israel, behold, these shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

   • 1845, The Land of Sinim; or, An Exposition of Isaiah XLIX. 12. Together with a Brief Account of the Jews and Christians in China.‎^[1], W.S. Martien, →OCLC, pages 11–12:

     The opinions of commentators are equally varied; some, as Jerome, Jarchi, Grotius, Pfeiffer, and Forerius, suppose that by the land of Sinim is meant the peninsula of Arabia, and particularly the Desert of Sin, and the region around Mount Sinai. Others prefer to understand Egypt, two of whose cities are called, in Scripture, Sin and Syene. Some of the most respectable names among commentators uphold this opinion; among others, those of the Jewish writers Aben Ezra, and Kimchi; and of the Christians, Bochart, Vitringa, Hiller, Seeker, Munster, Clarius, Michaelis, Orton, W. Lowth and Thomas Scott. There is another class composed of those who think that the land of Sinim means China, among whom are Manasseh Ben Israel, Arias Montanus, Dorsch, Langles, Gesenius, Calmet, Dr. Hagar, Dr. Morrison and others. Probably the truth lies between these opinions, and to them our attention may be confined.

   • 1886 December, T. de Lacouperie, “THE SINIM OF ISAIAH, NOT THE CHINESE”, in The Babylonian and Oriental Record‎^[2], page 45:

     From the internal evidence offered by the context, the country of Sinim is a far distant land, which must be sought for in the East, the only point of the horizon left unnoticed by the author. The word Sinim exhibits the grammatical form of the Semitic plural, therefore it is an ethnic term—the name of a people, not that of a country.
     In the Septuagint version the difficulty of identification, ipsis verbis, was explained away by a simple substitution of names. The country of the Persians ἐκ γῆς Περσῶν, was named instead of the country of Sinim.

   • 1984, Sidney Shapiro, Jews in Old China‎^[3], New York: Hippocrene Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page xii:

     Perlmann and several others based their contention on the prophesy in Isaiah 49:12 that the Jews would be returning from “Sinim.” Since “Sinim” meant China, they said, and since Isaiah lived in the 8th, or possibly in the 6th, century B.C., both within the period of Zhou (11th to 3rd centuries B.C.), it proved that the Jews were already there.

   • 2000, Jacob d'Ancona, translated by David Selbourne, The City of Light‎^[4], Citadel Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 59:

     In this city the merchants make large profits, coming thither not only from all the lands of the Saracens but from Greater India, from the islands of Lesser India and even from the land of Sinim.

Translations

ancient location

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 希尼

• Japanese: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• “Sinim”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Minis, imins, minis, misin