Lasha
La'sha (Heb. Le'sha, לֶשִׁע, fissure, in pause לָשִׁע; Sept. Λασά, Vulg. Lesa), a place mentioned last in defilling the border of the Canaanites (Ge 10:19), and apparently situated east of the Dead Sea. According to Jerome (Quaest. in Gen.), Jonathan (where קלדהי is doubtless an erroneous transcription for קלרהי), and the Jerus. Targum, it was the spot afterwards known as Callirrhoe, famous for its warm springs, just beyond Jordan (Josephus, Ant. 7:6, 5; War, 1:33, 5; compare Ptolemy, 5:16, 9), on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, where Machaerus lay (Pliny, 5:15). These springs were visited by Irby and Mangles (Travels, page 467 sq.); they lie north of the Arnon (Rosenmüller, Alterth. II, 1:218). Schwarz says that ruins as well as the hot springs are still found at the mouth of wady Zurka (Palestine, page 228). Bochart (Geogr. Sacr. 4:37) less correctly identifies the name with the Arabic Lusa (Reland, Paltest. page 871). Lieut. Lynch visited the outlet of these springs through the wady Zurka, which he describes as a rapid stream twelve feet wide and tell inches deep, with a temperature of 94°, having a slight sulphurous taste. The bed is a chasm 122 feet wide, worn through perpendicular cliffs, and fringed with canes, tamarisks, and the castor-bean (Narrative of the U.S. Expedition to the Jordan, page 370). Irby and Mangles found several warm sulphur springs discharging themselves into the stream at various points, being, no doubt, those visited by Herod in his last sickness. SEE CALLIRRHOE. The place is apparently also the ZARETH-SHAHAR SEE ZARETH-SHAHAR (q.v.) of Jos 13:19.
