Syria

Syria is the highland country lying between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea, called Aram in the older texts after the son of Shem. From Israel's earliest centuries it furnished both gods and adversaries: the sons of Israel "served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon" (Jg 10:6), and the kingdoms of Damascus, Zobah, and Hamath dominated the corridor north of Galilee. Through the monarchic period Syria is the chief land-power Israel and Judah confront, until Assyria swallows it; in the New Testament era "Syria" reappears as a Roman provincial designation reaching down into Phoenicia and Cilicia.

Davidic Conquest and the Syria of Damascus

David's wars north of Israel begin with Hadadezer of Zobah. He "struck also Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his dominion at the River" (2Sa 8:3), captured a thousand and seven hundred horsemen and twenty thousand footmen, and hocked all the chariot horses (2Sa 8:4). When the Syrians of Damascus came up to relieve Hadadezer, David struck them, two and twenty thousand men (2Sa 8:5). The political result is summarized in the umbrella verse: "Then David 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). David takes the gold shields of Hadadezer's slaves and exceedingly much bronze from Betah and Berothai (2Sa 8:7-8); Toi king of Hamath, who had been at war with Hadadezer, sends his son Joram to greet and bless David (2Sa 8:9-10). The spoil is dedicated to Yahweh alongside that of Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Philistines, and Amalek (2Sa 8:11-12), and David earns his name "when he returned from striking the Syrians in the Valley of Salt, even eighteen thousand men" (2Sa 8:13).

The kingdom of Damascus itself is founded out of the wreckage of David's campaign. A man "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). In Solomon's reign that same line resurfaces as a Yahweh-raised 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).

Ben-hadad of Damascus

By the divided monarchy the dominant power at Damascus is the Ben-hadad dynasty. Asa of Judah, pressed by Baasha of Israel, empties the treasures of the house of Yahweh and of the king's house and "sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus" (1Ki 15:18); the parallel notes that "Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of Yahweh and of the king's house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus" (2Ch 16:2).

A later Ben-hadad presses Israel directly. He "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). After his defeat the same account closes with him pleading, "Your slave Ben-hadad says, I pray you, let my soul live," to which Ahab replies, "Is he yet alive? He is my brother"; the cities Ben-hadad's father had taken from Ahab's father are restored, "and so he made a covenant with him, and let him go" (1Ki 20:1-43).

The Ben-hadad of the Naaman story still has Damascus as his capital, sending the letter that throws the king of Israel into panic: "look, I have sent Naaman my slave to you, that you may recover him of his leprosy" (2Ki 5:6). The king of Israel rends his clothes and complains, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends to me to recover a man of his leprosy? But consider, I pray you⁺, and see how he seeks a quarrel against me" (2Ki 5:7). The dynasty endures into the Jehoahaz years: Yahweh "delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually" (2Ki 13:3). Amos seals the dynasty's fate: "I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben-hadad" (Am 1:4).

Hazael and the Oppression of Israel

Hazael's elevation is a prophetic act. Yahweh sends Elijah back: "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). Elisha is the agent: when the Syrian king is sick, "the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of Yahweh by him, saying, Will I recover of this sickness?" (2Ki 8:8). The Joram-Jehu rupture turns on Syrian pressure — "Joram was keeping Ramoth-gilead, he and all Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria" (2Ki 9:14) — and from that point Hazael's hand falls on Israel without remission. "In those days Yahweh began to cut off from Israel: and 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); "And Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz" (2Ki 13:22).

Naaman and Elisha

Embedded in the Hazael-era hostilities is a counter-current: a Syrian general healed by Israel's prophet. "Now 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 protest at the Jordan — "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) — becomes a foil to the eventual cure. Centuries later the episode is invoked as a sign that prophetic mercy has always crossed Israel's borders: "And 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 same Elisha seasons the long Syrian war with mercy and threat alternately. After luring a raiding party into Samaria, he feeds them and sends them home, "and the bands of Syria did not come into the land of Israel anymore" (2Ki 6:23). On his deathbed he commands Joash to shoot the arrow eastward: "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).

Jeroboam's Recovery

Under Jeroboam II the northern kingdom briefly reverses Syrian dominance. He "restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of Yahweh, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his slave Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher" (2Ki 14:25). The summary of his reign records "how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, [which had belonged] to Judah, for Israel" (2Ki 14:28).

Rezin, the Syro-Ephraimite War, and the Fall of Damascus

The last Syria of the kings is Rezin's. "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. Is 7:1). Isaiah's word to Ahaz reduces the coalition to its political map: "For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin" (Is 7:8), with the assurance that "before the child will know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor will be forsaken" (Is 7:16).

The fulfillment is Tiglath-pileser. Ahaz sends to Assyria: "I am your slave and your son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel" (2Ki 16:7). The temple silver and gold go as a present (2Ki 16:8), "and the king of Assyria listened to him; and 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). Rabshakeh later taunts Hezekiah by listing the casualties: "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (2Ki 18:34). After the Samarian deportation, Hamath-Syrians are themselves transplanted: the king of Assyria "brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel" (2Ki 17:24).

In Judah's last years Syrian bands are listed among the Babylonian confederates: "And Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the sons of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it" (2Ki 24:2); Zedekiah is brought "to Riblah in the land of Hamath" for Nebuchadrezzar's judgment (Jer 39:5).

Prophetic Oracles against Syria

The prophets return to Damascus repeatedly. Isaiah opens with the head-and-heart map of Is 7:8 and follows it with Is 8:4 — "before the child will have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria" — and with the burden proper: "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, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid. And the fortress will cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they will be as the glory of the sons of Israel" (Is 17:1-3).

Jeremiah's Damascus oracle takes up the same north-Syrian roster — "Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil news, they melt [with fear]" (Jer 49:23) — closing with the burning of "the palaces of Ben-hadad" (Jer 49:27).

Amos opens his cycle of nations against Damascus first of all: "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" (Am 1:3); the sentence falls on the dynasty — "the house of Hazael," "the palaces of Ben-hadad" (Am 1:4) — and on the people: "the people of Syria will go into captivity to Kir, says Yahweh" (Am 1:5).

Zechariah's later word still rests on the same city: "The burden of the word of Yahweh on the land of Hadrach, and Damascus [will be] its resting-place" (Zec 9:1).

Syria in the Hellenistic and Roman Era

By the Maccabean wars Syria has become a Hellenistic power-name. When Israel mounts the Mizpah resistance, "the merchants of the countries heard the fame of them: and they took silver and gold in abundance, and servants: and they came into the camp, to buy the sons of Israel for slaves: and there were joined to them the forces of Syria, and of the land of the strangers" (1Ma 3:41). The same campaign theatre is still walked in Jonathan's day: "he went forward, and came to Damascus, and passed through all that country" (1Ma 12:32).

In the Gospels the term reappears as a Roman provincial designation that reaches into Phoenicia. The woman at Tyre is described in those mixed terms: "Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race. And she implored him that he would cast forth the demon out of her daughter" (Mr 7:26).

Damascus, finally, holds its place at the intersection of Christian beginnings. Paul, recounting his early movements, says, "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), and a few verses later, "Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia" (Ga 1:21).