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town or village
Riblah
- Today Rableh
History
Riblah lay on the east bank of the Orontes, at the village of Rableh in western Syria near the Lebanese border, about 33 km south-south-west of Homs. It stood at a bend of the river, at the northern end of the valley between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, where a broad and fertile plain opens. Edward Robinson, who camped there in 1852, wrote that no one questioned its identity with biblical Riblah. Numbers names a Riblah on the eastern border of the promised land; whether that is the same place is disputed.
The plain around Riblah had long been a crossroads and a battlefield. Tell Nebi Mend, ancient Kadesh, where Ramesses II fought the Hittites in the thirteenth century BC, is within sight about 12 km to the north. Water, grain and forage were at hand, and roads led from here north to the Euphrates and south to Palestine and Egypt, which made the place a natural camp for great armies.
In 609 BC Pharaoh Necho marched north to help the last Assyrian king against Babylon, as the Babylonian Chronicle also records; on the way he killed Josiah at Megiddo. Josiah's son Jehoahaz reigned only three months before Necho "put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath"; Necho set Eliakim on the throne as Jehoiakim and took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar routed the Egyptians at Carchemish and took the whole region of Hamath. During the siege of Jerusalem he himself stayed at Riblah, and when the city fell in 587 or 586 BC Zedekiah was brought to him here: his sons were killed before his eyes, he was blinded and taken to Babylon. Nebuzaradan later brought the chief priest Seraiah and other leaders of Judah to Riblah, where the king had them put to death.
After this Riblah disappears from history. In the fourth century AD Eusebius knew Rebla only as the place in the land of Hamath where Pharaoh led Jehoahaz away, and Jerome took Riblah for Antioch. Robinson noted that Riblah does not appear in the lists of early church sees. The plain passed to the Seleucid kings and then to Roman Syria, whose chief city nearby was Emesa, the modern Homs.
Scripture: Num 34:11; 2 Kgs 23:29–34; 2 Kgs 25:1–7; 2 Kgs 25:18–21; Jer 39:5–7; Jer 52:9–11; Jer 52:24–27
Sources
- Babylonian Chronicle ABC 3 (Fall of Nineveh Chronicle), year 17 (609 BC: the Egyptian army with Ashur-uballit at Harran); ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle) obv. 1-8 (605 BC: Carchemish and the district of Hamath)
- Josephus, Antiquities 10.82; 10.135; 10.149-150
- Eusebius, Onomasticon, s.v. Rebla (no. 799 in C. U. Wolf's translation)
- Jerome, Commentaries on Isaiah 13:1 and on Ezekiel 47:16 (Riblah as Antioch), as cited by Robinson (1856) 545 n. 4
- E. Robinson, Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions (1856) 542-546
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (2007), s.v. Riblah
Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.
Verses (11)
- 2 Kgs 23:33
- And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
- 2 Kgs 25:6
- So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.
- 2 Kgs 25:20
- And Nebuzar-adan captain of the guard took these, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah:
- 2 Kgs 25:21
- And the king of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away out of their land.
- Jer 39:5
- But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him.
- Jer 39:6
- Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.
- Jer 52:9
- Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him.
- Jer 52:10
- And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
- Jer 52:26
- So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.
- Jer 52:27
- And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive out of his own land.
- Ezek 6:14
- So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
King James Version