CUTHAH or CUTH (Hebrew, 
; LXX., Χουθά; Eusebius and Jerome, Χωθά; Assyrian, "Kutu"):
One of five cities from which Sargon, King of Assyria, brought settlers to take the places of the exiled Israelites (II Kings xvii. 24, 30). These settlers were attacked by lions, and interpreting this to mean that their worship was not acceptable to the deity of the land, they asked Sargon to send some one to teach them, which he did. The result was a mixture of religions and peoples, the latter being known in the Talmud as 
("Cuthim") and 
("Samaritans"). They "are called in the Hebrew tongue 'Cutheans,' but in the Greek 'Samaritans'" (Josephus, "Ant." ix. 14, § 3). In the Assyrian inscriptions "Cutha" occurs on the Shalmaneser obelisk, line 82, in connection with Babylon. Dungi, King of Ur, built the temple of Nergal at Cuthah (Schrader, "K. B." iii. 81a), which fell into ruins, so that Nebuchadnezzar had to rebuild the "temple of the gods, and placed them in safety in the temple" (ib. 51b). This agrees with the Biblical statement that the men of Cuthah served Nergal (II Kings xvii. 30). Cuthah has been identified with the ruins of Tell Ibrahim, northeast of Babylon, uncovered by Hormuzd Rassam. The site of the Nergal temple can still be pointed out. Josephus places Cuthah, which for him is the name of a river and of a district ("Ant." ix. 14, § 1, 3), in Persia, and Neubauer ("G. T." p. 379) says that it is the name of a country near Kurdistan. See Schrader, "C. I. O. T." pp. 270 et seq.
