That is a Sybase-ism. SQLite3 is not Sybase. The tablename specified after the UPDATE keyword is included in the query processing and is not repeated in the FROM clause unless you want to have the same table included twice. That is, in Sybase, when you have a FROM clause in an UPDATE statement then one of the tables in that FROM clause must follow the UPDATE keyword in order to specify which particular table of the join is being updated. This is a hold-over from the original SQL in which one spoke: SELECT * FROM a,b ... FOR UPDATE OF a; as the SQL statement and then proceeded to do an UPDATE A SET col=value WHERE CURRENT OF CURSOR as the select ran. Sybase contracted this to: UPDATE a set col=value FROM a,b ...; and Microsoft stole Sybase 4 and renamed it SQL Server.