Damascus

Damascus stands in scripture as an ancient walled city, the head of Syria, and a recurring foil to Israel and Judah. It is the home of Abram's heir-presumptive, the seat from which Aramean kings press in upon the northern kingdom, the target of the prophets' burdens, and the city over whose wall Paul is finally let down in a basket.

An ancient city

The city is already in view in the patriarchal narratives. When Abram pursues the kings who have carried Lot off, he routes them by night and chases them past Damascus: "he divided himself against them by night, he and his slaves, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus" (Gen 14:15). A chapter later, Abram's complaint to Yahweh names a Damascene as his presumed heir: "O Sovereign Yahweh, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the son of the inheritance of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" (Gen 15:2).

David's Aramean campaign

Damascus enters Israel's political history as the seat of Syrian power David subdues. When David is engaged with Hadadezer of Zobah, "the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, [and] David struck of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men" (2Sa 8:5). David then "put garrisons in Syria of Damascus; and the Syrians became slaves to David, and brought tribute. And Yahweh gave victory to David wherever he went" (2Sa 8:6).

The same campaign produces the man who will detach the city from David's house. Rezon "gathered men to him, and became captain over a troop, when David slew them [of Zobah]: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt in it, and reigned in Damascus" (1Ki 11:24). Solomon's reign sees him raised up as adversary: "And God raised up [another] adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah" (1Ki 11:23).

The head of Syria

By the prophets' day Damascus is paired with Syria as a single political head. Isaiah's oracle puts the matter as a couplet: "For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years will Ephraim be broken in pieces, so that it will not be a people" (Isa 7:8). The city anchors Aramean territory in Ezekiel's restoration borders as well: "Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazer-hatticon, which is by the border of Hauran. And the border from the sea, will be Hazar-enon at the border of Damascus" (Eze 47:16-17).

The Aramean wars

The northern kingdom's chronic adversary across several reigns is the king at Damascus. Asa, fighting Baasha, sends silver and gold to Ben-hadad of Damascus to buy a Syrian alliance: "King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus" (1Ki 15:18); the Chronicler records the same: "Asa brought out silver and gold... and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus" (2Ch 16:2).

Under Ahab the campaigns intensify. Ben-hadad of Syria "gathered all his host together; and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and fought against it" (1Ki 20:1-43). The same chapter ends with a treaty that names Damascus directly: "[Ben-hadad] said to him, The cities which my father took from your father I will restore; and you will make streets for yourself in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. And I, [said Ahab], will let you go with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and let him go" (1Ki 20:34).

Yahweh's response to Ahab on Horeb names Damascus as the staging-ground for a new dynasty: "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when you come, you will anoint Hazael to be king over Syria" (1Ki 19:15). Hazael's accession is set in motion through Elisha — "the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of Yahweh by him" (2Ki 8:8) — and his reign is a long pressure on Israel: "Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz" (2Ki 13:22); "Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel" (2Ki 10:32); "Then Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath, and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem" (2Ki 12:17). Joram is wounded fighting the same king: "Joram was keeping Ramoth-gilead, he and all Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria" (2Ki 9:14). Yahweh's hand is named in the pattern: "the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually" (2Ki 13:3). Elisha later promises a turn: "Yahweh's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you will strike the Syrians in Aphek, until you have consumed them" (2Ki 13:17), and that the Syrian raids cease for a season — "the bands of Syria did not come into the land of Israel anymore" (2Ki 6:23). Jeroboam (II) recovers the city outright: "how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, [which had belonged] to Judah, for Israel" (2Ki 14:28).

A later cycle aligns Damascus with Israel against Judah. "In those days Yahweh began to send against Judah, Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah" (2Ki 15:37). "Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him" (2Ki 16:5; cf. Isa 7:1). Ahaz appeals to Assyria, and the city falls: "the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried [the people of] it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin" (2Ki 16:9).

Israel's older entanglement with Damascene religion is in the background of the Judges as well: "the sons of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria" (Jg 10:6).

Naaman the Syrian

Damascus has its rivers and its leper. When Elisha sends Naaman to wash in the Jordan, the captain bristles: "Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the 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" (2Ki 5:12). The narrative frame names him as a man of weight in the Syrian court: "Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, [but he was] a leper" (2Ki 5:1). His healing supplies the letter of which the king of Israel rends his clothes — Ben-hadad has written, "I have sent Naaman my slave to you, that you may recover him of his leprosy" (2Ki 5:6-7). Jesus later names him in Nazareth: "there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Lu 4:27).

The prophets' burdens

Damascus is a fixed object of prophetic indictment. Isaiah pairs the city's spoils with Samaria's: "the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria" (Isa 8:4). The "burden of Damascus" is plainer: "Look, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be for flocks" (Isa 17:1-2).

Jeremiah's oracle hands the city its lament: "Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil news, they melt [with fear]... Damascus is waxed feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy? Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh of hosts. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben-hadad" (Jer 49:23-27).

Amos opens his cycle of oracles at Damascus: "For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. And I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria will go into captivity to Kir" (Am 1:3-5; cf. Am 1:4). Zechariah's later word lands there too: "The burden of the word of Yahweh on the land of Hadrach, and Damascus [will be] its resting-place" (Zec 9:1).

Damascus in the Hellenistic and apostolic record

Jonathan's march in 1 Maccabees passes through the city: "he went forward, and came to Damascus, and passed through all that country" (1Ma 12:32). The merchants of "the forces of Syria" buy slaves at the camp at Idumaea (1Ma 3:41).

Paul's own brief Damascus-notice frames his return from Arabia: "neither did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus" (Ga 1:17). The escape over the wall is told first-person: "In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me: and through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands" (2Co 11:32-33).