A city in Lower Egypt, called Saanat in Egyptian, and Saanu in Assyrian records of the time of Ashurbanipal. In the Septuagint and in classical sources it is named Tanis. The ancient name is preserved in San el-Hajjar in the northeastern Delta.
Numbers 13:22 states: "Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." The accepted view is that this tradition connects the foundation of Hebron with Avaris, the Hyksos capital of Lower Egypt. Zoan, mentioned in Isaiah's prophecies as the seat of the counselors of Pharaoh, was thus a city of importance (Is 19:11, 13; 30:4). This fits well with its position in the period of the 21st-23rd Dynasties. As a place of importance it is also referred to in Ezekiel 30:14. Zoan is not mentioned in connection with the bondage in Egypt, but Psalm 78:12, 43 praises the Lord for the marvelous things he did in the field of Zoan, which again fits the Egyptian name Sakhat Saanat.
