Hadadezer (
''bib'' Heb: ''Ḥăḏaḏeʹzer''; meaning "
Hadad
Hadad ( uga, ), Haddad, Adad (Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions.
He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. F ...
helps"), son of
Rehob, was king of
Zobah, a Syrian (
Aramaean) kingdom that may have been in the
Beqaa valley of Lebanon, extended along the eastern side of the
Anti-Lebanon Mountains
The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...
reaching
Hamath
Hama ( ar, حَمَاة ', ; syr, ܚܡܬ, ħ(ə)mɑθ, lit=fortress; Biblical Hebrew: ''Ḥamāṯ'') is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provincia ...
to the north.
The kingdom of Zobah exercised power throughout southern Syria, and inevitably clashed with the expanding
empire of Israel.
Biography
Hanun
Hanun ( he, ''Ḥānūn'') was a king of Ammon described in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles.
Biblical narrative
Upon the death of his father Nahash, Hanun ascended to the throne of the Ammonites. When King David sent ambassadors to convey his co ...
, the king of the
Ammon
Ammon ( Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; he, עַמּוֹן ''ʻAmmōn''; ar, عمّون, ʻAmmūn) was an ancient Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in ...
ites, hired Hadadezer in his war against David.
Joab
Joab (Hebrew Modern: ''Yōʼav'', Tiberian: ''Yōʼāḇ'') the son of Zeruiah, was the nephew of King David and the commander of his army, according to the Hebrew Bible.
Name
The name Joab is, like many other Hebrew names, theophoric - de ...
found them in a double-battle array, with the Ammonites toward the capital of
Rabbah
Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...
, and Syrian mercenaries near
Madaba
Madaba ( ar, مادبا; Biblical Hebrew: ''Mēḏəḇāʾ''; grc, Μήδαβα) is the capital city of Madaba Governorate in central Jordan, with a population of about 60,000. It is best known for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, esp ...
. David battled the Syrians which caused them to scatter. This alarmed the Ammonites, who fled back to their capital.
After the Syrians were defeated, Hadadezer traveled north to "recover his border" (2 Samuel 8:3). The power of the Ammonites and the Syrians was finally broken, and David's empire expanded to the
Euphrates (2 Sam. 10:15-19; 1 Chr. 19:15-19).
See also
*
List of Syrian monarchs
The title King of Syria appeared in the second century BC in referring to the Seleucid kings who ruled the entirety of the region of Syria. It was also used to refer to Aramean kings in the Greek translations of the Old Testament, mainly indicatin ...
*
Timeline of Syrian history
__NOTOC__
This is a timeline of Syrian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Syria and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Syria.
Millennia: 1s ...
*
Aramean kings
Aramean kings were kings of the ancient Arameans, and rulers of various Aramean states that existed throughout the Levant and Mesopotamia during the 14th and 13th centuries BC, before being absorbed by various other empires such as the Neo-Assy ...
*
Battle at Helam
Footnotes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hadadezer Bar Rehob
Ancient Israel and Judah
Aramean kings