town or village

Damascus

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Events

1. 841 BCShalmaneser III defeats Hazael and shuts him up in Damascus
2. c. 796 BCAdad-nirari III takes tribute from Damascus and from Joash of Samaria
3. 732 BCTiglath-pileser III takes Damascus
4. AD 1148The Second Crusade fails before Damascus

In ancient writers

• Strabo, Geography 16.2.20 — Damascus is a considerable city and under the Persian empire was nearly the most distinguished in Syria; above it lie the two Trachones and rugged mountains, one of whose caves could hold four thousand robbers.
• Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.159–160 — Quoting Nicolaus of Damascus, Josephus says Abram came from the land of the Chaldeans and reigned at Damascus as a foreigner before moving on to Canaan; a village there was still called the Habitation of Abram.

History

Damascus lies on a plateau east of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, where the Barada river spreads out into the Ghouta, a broad oasis at the edge of the Syrian desert. Farmers lived nearby at Tell Ramad by the seventh millennium BC. The city's name appears in the lists of Thutmose III in the fifteenth century BC, and in the Amarna letters of the fourteenth century its land was held for Pharaoh by Biryawaza. Genesis already knows it: Abram pursues the kings as far as Hobah near Damascus, and his steward Eliezer is of Damascus.

From about the tenth century BC Damascus was the capital of the Aramean kingdom of Aram. The Bible tells of David's garrisons there, of Rezon who seized it in Solomon's day, of the kings Ben-hadad and Hazael who fought Israel, and of Naaman the commander, healed by Elisha, who praised Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus. Assyrian inscriptions name Hadadezer of Damascus among the kings who fought Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC, and in 841 BC Shalmaneser besieged Hazael in the city without taking it.

Rezin of Damascus joined Israel against Judah; Ahaz called in Tiglath-pileser III, who took Damascus in 732 BC, killed Rezin and deported its people, as 2 Kings tells and the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle confirms with its campaigns against Damascus. Isaiah and Amos had foretold its fall. The city lived on as a provincial centre under the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians, and after Alexander it was contested by the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. The Nabataean king Aretas III held it about 85 BC, and in 64 BC Pompey brought it under Rome.

On the road to Damascus Saul of Tarsus was converted; in the city, at the street called Straight, Ananias baptised him, and he later escaped over the wall in a basket while the governor under King Aretas guarded the city. Roman Damascus was laid out on a grid around a vast temple of Jupiter, which at the end of the fourth century, under Theodosius I, became a church, later known as the church of John the Baptist. Damascus remained a leading city of Byzantine Syria until the Arab conquest of 634.

Scripture: Gen 14:15; Gen 15:2; 2 Sam 8:5–6; 1 Kgs 11:23–24; 1 Kgs 15:18–20; 1 Kgs 20:1; 2 Kgs 5:1–14; 2 Kgs 8:7–15; 2 Kgs 13:3; 2 Kgs 16:5–9; Isa 17:1; Amos 1:3–5; Acts 9:1–25; 2 Cor 11:32–33

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (58)

Gen 14:15

And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

Gen 15:2

And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

2 Sam 8:5

And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men.

2 Sam 8:6

Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.

1 Kgs 11:24

And he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band, when David slew them of Zobah: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus.

1 Kgs 15:18

Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,

1 Kgs 19:15

And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:

1 Kgs 20:34

And Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities, which my father took from thy father, I will restore; and thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him away.

2 Kgs 5:12

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

2 Kgs 8:7

And Elisha came to Damascus; and Ben-hadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither.

2 Kgs 8:9

So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels’ burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Ben-hadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?

2 Kgs 14:28

Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

2 Kgs 16:9

And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin.

2 Kgs 16:10

And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof.

2 Kgs 16:11

And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus.

2 Kgs 16:12

And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar: and the king approached to the altar, and offered thereon.

1 Chr 18:5

And when the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadarezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men.

1 Chr 18:6

Then David put garrisons in Syria-damascus; and the Syrians became David’s servants, and brought gifts. Thus the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.

2 Chr 16:2

Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the king’s house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,

2 Chr 24:23

And it came to pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus.

2 Chr 28:5

Wherefore the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.

2 Chr 28:23

For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.

Song 7:4

Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.

Isa 7:8

For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

Isa 8:4

For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

Isa 10:9

Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

Isa 17:1

The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

Isa 17:3

The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.

Jer 49:23

Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.

Jer 49:24

Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.

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King James Version

Tours through this place

• Elisha the prophet →
• The fall of Israel →
• The conversion of Saul →