Armenia in comments -- Book: Isaiah (tIs) Եսայի
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tIs 37:10 The message. "Thus shall ye say to Hizkiyahu king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Asshur. Behold, thou hast surely heard what (K. that which) the kings of Asshur have done to all lands, to lay the ban upon them; and thou, thou shouldst be delivered?! Have the gods of the nations, which my fathers destroyed, delivered them: Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the Benē-‛Eden, which are in Tellasar? Where is (K. where is he) the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of 'Ir-Sepharvaim, Hena', and 'Ivah?"Although ארץ is feminine, אותם (K. אתם), like להחרימם, points back to the lands (in accordance with the want of any thoroughly developed distinction of the genders in Hebrew); likewise אשׁר quas pessumdederunt. There is historical importance in the fact, that here Sennacherib attributes to his fathers (Sargon and the previous kings of the Derketade dynasty which he had overthrown) what Rabshakeh on the occasion of the first mission had imputed to Sennacherib himself. On Gozan, see p. 33. It is no doubt identical with the Zuzan of the Arabian geographers, which is described as a district of outer Armenia, situated on the Chabur, e.g., in the Merasid. ("The Chabur is the Chabur of el-Hasaniye, a district of Mosul, to the east of the Tigris; it comes down from the mountains of the land of Zuzan, flows through a broad and thickly populated country in the north of Mosul, which is called outer Armenia, and empties itself into the Tigris." Ptolemy, on the other hand (Isa 37:18, Isa 37:14), is acquainted with a Mesopotamian Gauzanitis; and, looking upon northern Mesopotamia as the border land of Armenia, he says, κατέχει δὲ τῆς ξηώρας τὰ μὲν πρὸς τῆ Αρμενία ἡ Ανθεμουσία (not far from Edessa) ὑφ ἥν ἡ Χαλκῖτις ὑπὸ δὲ ταύτην ἡ Γαυζανῖτις, possibly the district of Gulzan, in which Nisibin, the ancient Nisibis, still stands.
(Note: See Oppert, Expdition, i. 60.)
For Hrn (Syr. Horon; Joseph. Charran of Mesopotamia), the present Harrn, not far from Charmelik, see Genesis, p. 327. The Harran in the Guta of Damascus (on the southern arm of the Harus), which Beke has recently identified with it, is not connected with it in any way. Retseph is the Rhesapha of Ptol. v. 18, 6, below Thapsacus, the present Rusafa in the Euphrates-valley of ez-Zor, between the Euphrates and Tadmur (Palmyra; see Robinson, Pal.). Telassar, with which the Targum (ii. iii.) and Syr. confound the Ellasar of Gen 14:1, i.e., Artemita (Artamita), is not the Thelseae of the Itin. Antonini and of the Notitia dignitatum - in which case the Benē-‛Eden might be the tribe of Bt Genn (Bettegene) on the southern slope of Lebanon (i.e., the 'Eden of Coelesyria, Amo 1:5; the Paradeisos of Ptol. v. 15, 20; Paradisus, Plin. v. 19) - but the Thelser of the Tab. Peuting., on the eastern side of the Tigris; and Benē-‛Eden is the tribe of the 'Eden mentioned by Ezekiel (Eze 27:23) after Haran and Ctesiphon. Consequently the enumeration of the warlike deeds describes a curve, which passes in a north-westerly direction through Hamath and Arpad, and then returns in Sepharvaim to the border of southern Mesopotamia and Babylonia. 'Ir-Sepharvaim is like 'Ir-Nchs, 'Ir-shemesh, etc. The legends connect the name with the sacred books. The form of the name is inexplicable; but the name itself probably signifies the double shore (after the Aramaean), as the city, which was the southernmost of the leading places of Mesopotamia, was situated on the Euphrates. The words ועוּה הנע, if not take as proper names, would signify, "he has taken away, and overthrown;" but in that case we should expect ועוּוּ הניעוּ or ועוּיתי הניעתי. They are really the names of cities which it is no longer possible to trace. Hena' is hardly the well-known Avatho on the Euphrates, as Gesenius, V. Niebuhr, and others suppose; and 'Ivah, the seat of the Avvı̄m (Kg2 17:31), agrees still less, so far as the sound of the word is concerned, with "the province of Hebeh (? Hebeb: Ritter, Erdk. xi. 707), situated between Anah and the Chabur on the Euphrates," with which V. Niebuhr combines it.
(Note: For other combinations of equal value, see Oppert, Expdition, i. 220.) Isaiah 37:14 tIs 37:24 Second turn, "By thy servants (K. thy messengers) hast thou reviled the Lord, in that thou sayest, With the multitude (K. chethib ברכב) of my chariots have I climbed the height of the mountains, the inner side of Lebanon; and I shall fell the lofty growth of its cedars, the choice (mibhchar, K. mibhchōr) of its cypresses: and I shall penetrate (K. and will penetrate) to the height (K. the halting-place) of its uttermost border, the grove of its orchard." The other text appears, for the most part, the preferable one here. Whether mal'ăkhekhâ (thy messengers, according to Isa 9:14) or ‛ăbhâdekhâ (thy servants, viz., Rabshakeh, Tartan, and Rabsaris) is to be preferred, may be left undecided; also whether רכבי ברכב is an error or a superlative expression, "with chariots of my chariots," i.e., my countless chariots; also, thirdly, whether Isaiah wrote mibhchōr. He uses mistōr in Isa 4:6 for a special reason; but such obscure forms befit in other instances the book of Kings, with its colouring of northern Palestine; and we also meet with mibhchōr in Kg2 3:19, in the strongly Aramaic first series of histories of Elisha. On the other hand, קצּה מלון is certainly the original reading, in contrast with קצו מרום. It is important, as bearing upon the interpretation of the passage, that both texts have ואכרת, not ואכרת, and that the other text confirms this pointing, inasmuch as it has ואבואה instead of ואובא. The Lebanon here, if not purely emblematical (as in Jer 22:6 = the royal city Jerusalem; Eze 17:3 = Judah-Jerusalem), has at any rate a synecdochical meaning (cf., Isa 14:8), signifying the land of Lebanon, i.e., the land of Israel, into which he had forced a way, and all the fortresses and great men of which he would destroy. He would not rest till Jerusalem, the most renowned height of the land of Lebanon, was lying at his feet. Thenius is quite right in regarding the "resting-place of the utmost border" and "the pleasure-garden wood" as containing allusions to the holy city and its royal citadel (compare the allegory in chapter 5). Isaiah 37:25