APHARSITES (Ezr_4:9).One of the nations transported to Samaria by the Assyrians. Otherwise unknown. The text is doubtful.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
a-far?sı̄ts (אפרסיא, 'ăphārṣāyē'): A tribe transferred to Samaria by Asnappar of Assyria (Ezr_4:9). Rawlinson identifies them with the APHARSACHITES (which see), taking Apharsites to be an accidental repetition of the same word. He understands ?the Persians? to be meant in both cases. Others identify them with a Median tribe mentioned in the inscriptions of Sennacherib as dwellers in the district of Parsua.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Apharsites
(Chald. Apharsaye', אֲפִרְסָיֵא; Sept. Α᾿φαρσαῖοι), the name of a tribe removed along with the Apharsachites (q.v.) to Samaria by the king of Assyria, and forming one of the opponents of the Jews after the captivity (Ezr_4:9). Hiller (Onomnast.) regards them as the Parrhasii, a tribe of Eastern Media, and Gesenius (Thes. Heb. p. 143) thinks they are the Persians, to whose name theirs certainly bears a much greater affinity, especially in the prolonged form of the latter found in Daniel 6:29 (Chald. Parsaya', פִּרְסָיָא). The presence of the proper name of the Persians in Ezr_1:1; Ezr_4:3, must throw some doubt. upon Gesenius' conjecture; but it is very possible that the local name of the tribe may have undergone alteration, while the official and general name was correctly given.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.