Rehoboth

The name Rehoboth — "broad places" or "room" — is attached in scripture to three different sites: a city in Assyria, the home of one of Edom's early kings, and a well that Isaac dug in the Negev. Each is named in a single passage (or, for the Edomite city, in two parallel ones), and the name itself is the link between them.

Rehoboth-ir in Assyria

In the Genesis 10 table of nations, the founding of Nineveh and the cities around it is reported in a sequence that places Rehoboth-ir in the Assyrian heartland alongside Nineveh and Calah:

"Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-ir, and Calah," (Ge 10:11).

The full form Rehoboth-ir ("Rehoboth-of-the-city") distinguishes the Assyrian site from the well in the Negev and the river-Rehoboth in Edom.

Rehoboth by the River, Home of Shaul of Edom

In the Edomite king-list, one of the early kings is identified by his city — Rehoboth by the River. Shaul of Rehoboth succeeded Samlah in the kingship:

"And Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the River reigned in his stead." (Ge 36:37).

The Chronicler preserves the same notice in identical wording:

"And Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the River reigned in his stead." (1Ch 1:48).

The qualifier "by the River" — the standard biblical idiom for the Euphrates — locates this Rehoboth far from the Negev well and again distinguishes it by its modifier.

The Well Isaac Named Rehoboth

In Isaac's well-digging narrative in the Negev, after two contested wells (Esek and Sitnah) are taken from him, he moves on and digs a third over which there is no quarrel. He names the well Rehoboth — "room" — and reads the uncontested digging as Yahweh's making space for the family:

"And he removed from there, and dug another well. And for that they didn't strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth. And he said, For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land." (Ge 26:22).

The naming of this third well attaches the meaning of the word — wide, uncrowded space — to the place where Isaac is finally given peace.