Succoth-benoth

Succoth-benoth (meaning: booths of daughters or tents of young women) was a deity worshipped by the Babylonian settlers whom the Assyrian king placed in Samaria to replace the deported Israelites (2 Kings 17:30). The name is generally understood as identifying the Babylonian goddess Zir-banit (or Sarpanit), the consort of Marduk, who was the chief deity of Babylon. Worship of this goddess apparently involved ritual booths or tents associated with sacred prostitution.

The catalogue of foreign gods introduced into Samaria in 2 Kings 17:29–31 illustrates the religious syncretism that characterized the repopulated region, as each national group maintained its own deity while also nominally acknowledging the God of Israel. This mixed worship became the theological basis for the later Jewish disdain for the Samaritans as a people of impure religion.