- 47-
Arabah "). The Dead Sea unquestionably marked on that side the southern boundary
originally of united Palestine, and afterwards of the trans-Jordanic kingdom of Israel,
while the "entering in of Hamath" equally indicates the northern limits of the realm
(Numbers 13:21; 34:8; Joshua 13:5; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Chronicles 7:8; Amos 6:14). The
precise locality designated as the "entering of Hamath," has not yet been accurately
ascertained. But it must be sought in that broad rich plain, flanked towards the west by
the Lebanon, and watered by the Orontes, which ascends for a distance of about eight
hours from Homs to Hamah, the ancient Hamath the Great (Amos 6:2).*
- See, besides the geographical authorities previously mentioned, Robinson, Res.;
Conder, Heth and Moab, pp. 7, 8; and for a different location, Porter, Damascus, II. pp.
35 5-359. On the map it must be looked for north and a little east from Baalhec.
In all likelihood it is in this general sense that we are to understand what seems the
parallel notice of these conquests (2 Kings 14:28):" Damascus and Hamath." The
expression seems to refer to the whole of the broad plain just described the words bearing
the same general meaning as when David is stated to have put garrisons in Syria of
Damascus (2 Samuel 8:5, 6), and Solomon to have occupied Hamath (2 Chronicles 8:3,
4).*
- Hamath itself may have been occupied by the Jews, at the time of Solomon, and in that
of Jeroboam II.; but it is scarcely credible that they ever held Damascus. Hamath lies in a
narrow valley between high cliffs, open only to the east and west, where the stream
passes through them. The territory, as we shall see, soon passed out of the possession of
Israel.
Here again welcome light comes to us from the monuments of Assyria. Thence we learn,
on the one hand, that the kingdom of Israel was tributary to the king of Assyria, and, on
the other, that that monarch conquered Damascus, took prisoner its king, who, having
embraced his knees in submission, had to pay a ransom of 2,300 talents of silver, 20 of
gold, 3,000 of copper, 5,000 of iron, together with garments of wool and linen, a couch
and an umbrella of ivory, and other spoil numberless.* The disastrous war of Syria with
Assyria, and the tributary alliance of Israel with the latter, would sufficiently account for
the conquests of Jeroboam II.
- Schrader, u.s. pp. 212-217.
And yet here also there is a higher meaning. If, on the suggestion just made, the
instrumentality used to bring about the victories of Jeroboam II. was not the direct help of
Jehovah, but the prowess of Assyria, we ought to bear in mind that direct interposition on
the part of the LORD in behalf of such a king could not have been expected. And yet, as
noted in the sacred text (2 Kings 14:25), the promise of the LORD given through the
prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, was literally fulfilled - only in the natural course of
(^)