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THE ARAMAEANS
A.Malamat
In the last quarter of the second millennium
B.C. a west-Semitic people, speaking various
Aramaic dialects, spread out from the
fringes of the Syro-Arabian desert (though
it is sometimes held that they came from the
north), fanning out over the Fertile
Crescent, from the Persian Gulf to the
Amanus mountains, the Lebanon, and
Transjordan. This burgeoning forth –
unparalleled in the ancient Near East - was
held in check by the great powers of the
day, till their decline let it loose over
the civilized regions of Hither Asia.
Originally nomadic or semi-nomadic, the
Arameans rapidly became an important
political and economic factor. Though their
earliest historical appearance remains
controversial, the Bible notes the kinship
of these Arameans with the Hebrew
Patriarchs, and records a vital, 300-year
relationship, both friendly and hostile,
between the two peoples in later times. In
the course of time the Aramaic language
became thoroughly entrenched in Hebrew
culture; it was the language of parts of the
Bible (in the books of Ezra and Daniel) and
remained in everyday use among Jews for over
a millennium.
(i) History
Aram is mentioned as a place-name as early
as the twenty-third century B.C., in an
inscription of Naram-Sin of Akkad, which
refers to a region on the Upper Euphrates,
and in c. 2000 B.C. in documents from Drehem,
as a city on the Lower Tigris. It occurs as
a personal name in the latter documents, in
the Mari texts (eighteenth century B.C.), at
Alalah (seventeenth century), and at Ugarit
(fourteenth century). One of the Ugaritic
texts mentions the ‘fields of Aram(aeans)`,
though its ethnic character here is
doubtful.[1] Aram is also mentioned in
Egyptian sources, as a place-name (ps-irm)
in Syria, in a recently discovered
topographical list of Amenophis III (first
half of the fourteenth century B.C.);[2] and
again in an Egyptian frontier journal from
the time of Merenptah, about 1220 B.C. (thus
the name should
not be emended, as is often done, to
Amurru). Yet these isolated references are
inconclusive in establishing such an early
appearance of the Arameans, especially since
the name Aram is later frequent as an
onomastic and toponymic element even in
entirely un-Aramean contexts.
The earliest definite extra-biblical
reference to the Arameans is from the time
of Tiglath-pileser I of Assyria (1116-1076
B.C.) This king’s consistent reference to
the compound name Ahlame-Ar(a)maya in his
inscriptions has led to the consideration
that the Ahlamu were actually Arameans, and
that the latters first appearance thus
stemmed back to the early attestation of the
Ahlamu near the Persian Gulf at the
beginning of the fourteenth century B.C.[3]
This identification, however, is untenable,
for the Aramaeans are mentioned quite
separately from, and alongside, the Ahlamu
(and the Sutu) in an inscription most likely
attributable to Ashur-bel-kala
(Tiglath-pileser I`s successor),[4] while
the Assyrian kings Adad-nirari II and
Ashur-nasir-apli II (tenth-ninth centuries
B.C.) refer to the Ahlame-Armaya alongside
the Aramaeans per se.
The compound Ahlame-Armaya rather denotes an
association of nomadic groups, in analogy
with similar couplings of tribal names, such
as the Old Babylonian references to
Amnanu-Yahrurum, Hana-DUMU.MESH-Yamina,
Amurru-Sutium.[5] One such component name
may well have come semantically to denote
the generic concept ‘nomad’ as probably
happened with the names Ahlamu and Sutu.
Moreover, the term Aram displays a
particular tendency for coupling, as in the
biblical Aram-Naharaim, Aram-Zobah,
Aram-Damascus, Aram-Beth-Rehob, and Aram-Maacah.
At any rate, the close historical
relationship of the Ahlamu and the Aramaeans
led occasionally in late cuneiform sources
to the Aramaic language and script being
referred to as ‘Ahlamu’.[6] Tiglath-pileser
I’s inscriptions deal with the Aramaeans in
two separate contexts: in the Annals for his
fourth year (1112 B.C.) he boasts that he
'went forth into the desert [here the
west-Semitic term mudbara is
employed], into the midst of the
Ahlame-Armaya.
. . . The country from Suhu [on the Middle
Euphrates--biblical
Shuah, Gen. 25: 2] to the city of Carchemish
I raided in one day’
(A.R.A.B. i, § 230). Crossing the Euphrates,
he sacked six Aramaean I
villages in the Mount Bishri
district--Mentioned in documents as much as
a millennium earlier as a perennial breeding
ground for nomadic tribes. This is taken as
a clear indication that the Aramaeans had
already become settled in the area
south-east of the great bend of the river,
whence they subsequently spread. The other
reference to the Aramaeans underlines their
stead- fast resistance to the Assyrians:
Tiglath-pileser I relates that, in the
course of repeated campaigns to subdue the
Aramaeans in the west, he had to cross the
Euphrates no less than twenty-eight times.
‘From the foot of the Lebanon mountains,[7]
from the town of Tadmar [biblical Tadmor,
later Palmyra] of the country of Amurru,
[towards] Anat of the country of Suhu, as
far as the town of Rapiqu of the country of
Karduniash [Babylonia], I defeated them`
(cf. A.R.A.B. i, § 287). Here the Aramaean
tribes are already associated with Mount
Lebanon--three or four generations prior to
their entanglement there with Saul and
David. An Assyrian chronicle clearly
testifies to the extreme danger posed by the
Aramaeans towards the end of
Tiglath-pileser’s reign, when they
penetrated even into Assyria proper, seizing
cities and disrupting communications.[8]
Tiglath-pileser’s son, Ashur-bel-kala
(1073--1056 B.C.), mentions the Aramaeans
(unassociated with the Ahlamu) in his Annals
and related documents, referring
specifically (in c. 1070 B.C.) to the ‘land
of Aram` (mat Arime, a genitival form
of the nominative Arumu, Aramu,
affected by vowel harmony), the exact
location of which it is difficult to fix. lf
the so-called ‘Broken Obelisk’ from Nineveh
is actually to be attributed to
Ashur-bel-kala, as seem reasonable then the
Aramaeans (who figure most prominently in
it) were spread over the vicinity of the
Kashiari mountains (modern Tur-'Abdin)
towards the Tigris, in the north, and along
the Habur valley, to the south. In this
period, an Aramaean usurper (a ˜son of a
nobody') bearing the Babylonian name
Adad-apla-iddin even managed to seize the
throne of Babylon."[10] The Aramaeans thus
came to achieve historical significance at
the end of the second millennium and the
beginning of the first millennium B.C., at
which time a cluster of independent Aramaean
states arose.[11] Those in Syria (to which
we shall return below) are known from the
combined evidence of Assyrian, Aramaean, and
biblical sources; those in Mesopotamia
almost entirely from Assyrian documents,
beginning in the late tenth century B.C.
The most important among the latter were
Bit-Adini (biblica Beth Eden; Amos 1:5)
above the great bend of the Euphrates, on
both banks (capital: Til-Barsip); Bit-Bahyan
(capital: Gozan; cf. 2 Kings 17: 6) on the
Upper Habur, and Bit-Halupe on the Lower
Habur; Laqe, Hindan, and Suhu on the Middle
Euphrates; Bit-Zamani in the Kashiari
mountains to the north (capital: Amedi,
modern Diarbekir); and Bit-Amukkani,
Bit-Dakuri, and Bit-Yakin, near the Persian
Gulf. Only a cursory outline of the later
fortunes of the Aramaeans is possible here,
though two of their major states, which rose
in the west and became fatefully entangled
with the Israelites, will occupy us later.
The climax of the Aramaean threat to Assyria
came during the century spanning the turn of
the millennium, when Assyria reached a nadir
under Ashur-rabi II (1012-972 12.C.) and
Tiglath-pileser II (966-935 Bc). Aramaean
power in the west now became severely
curtailed, however, on account of the rising
kingdom of Israel (see below), which
relieved Assyria somewhat on its western
flank. Indeed, towards the end of the tenth
century B.C. Ashur-dan II (934-912 B.C.) was
able to repel the Aramaean states on the
Upper Habur, and Adad-nirari II (911-891
1:.C.) had success there and also on the
Middle Euphrates. Ashur-nasir-apli II
(883-859 B.C.) and, in particular,
Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.) dealt the
Aramaeans further blows. Apart from their
renewed campaigns in northern Mesopotamia,
the Assyrians overran the Aramaean states
between the Habur and the Euphrates, and
after successive attempts even the stubborn
kingdom of Bit-Adini fell (in 855 BC), thus
removing the last major stumbling-block
towards the west into Syria. This brought
Shalmaneser III, and later Adad-nirari III
(810-783 B.C.), into a direct confrontation
with the powerful kingdom of Aram-Damascus,
resulting in its subjugation (see below).
Yet the final blow came from Tiglath-pileser
III (744-727 nc.), who reduced the Aramaean
states in Syria to mere Assyrian provinces,
such as Sama’al, Arpad, and Hadrach (cf.
Zech. 9: 1) in the north, and Aram-Damascus
in the south.
In spite of occasional revolts (see below),
the Assyrians held tightly on to Syria, thus
terminating independent Aramaean history in
the west: around the second half of the
eighth century BC. the focus of Aramaean
history shifts to Babylonia. Since the
eleventh century B.C, various Aramaean and
closely related tribes (such as the Suteans
and the ethnically mixed Chaldeans) had
infiltrated in increasing numbers into
Babylonia, rising to play a prominent role
in the days of Tiglath-pileser III.[12] His
inscriptions attest to heavy Aramaean
settlement around the Persian Gulf, and
specify some thirty-five different tribes
”among whom are the Puqudu (the Pekod of
Jer. 50: 21 and Ezek. 23: 23). These tribes,
whose chieftains were frequently designated
by the term nasiku (cf. the Hebrew
cognate nasik, applied to the
Midianite tribal leaders), were a bane to
Tiglath-pileser lll and the succeeding
Sargonid dynasty. They were subjugated only
after repeated attempts, and then exiled in
large numbers (e.g. 208,000 by Sennacherib
in 703 B.C.). Even so, the Aramaeans
ultimately came to the fore as a dominant
factor within the neo-Babylonian empire.
(ii) Origins and Affinities in Biblical
Tradition
An obscure tradition preserved in Amos 9:7
traces the origin of the Aramaeans to a
place called Kir, possibly near Elam (cf.
Isa.22: 6), though Amos 1: 5 and 2 Kings 16:
9 give this as the place to which the
Aramaeans of Damascus were destined to be
exiled. The passages in Amos imply that,
after almost half a millennium of Aramaean
settlement in Syria, there still circulated
a national account of the Aramaean
migration, much like the chronicle of the
Israelitc exodus from Egypt or that of the
Philistines from Caphtor.[13] They further
point to the historical consequences of
Aramaean `misbehaviour’, leading to their
return to their ancestral
homeland--reminiscent of the threat to a
disobedient Israel of being sent back to
Egypt (cf. Deut. 28: 68; Hos. 8: 13).
In the Table of Nations (Gen. 10: 22-23),
the eponymous ancestor Aram, on a par with
Elam and Ashur, is descended directly from
Shem, reflecting the Aramaeans’ rise to
importance in the Near East in the first
third of the first millennium B.C.
Four ‘sons’ (‘brothers’ in the parallel
version in 1 Chr. 1 : 17) are assigned to
Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash (LXX and
Chronicles: Meshech; Samaritan Pent. Massa),
whose identity and location are uncertain.
The Qumran War Scroll (Il. 10,
rendering Massa, and Togar instead of
Gether) places these ‘beyond the Euphrates’.
The previously modest standing of the
Aramaeans is reflected in the genealogical
table of the Nahorites (Gen. 22: 20-24),
where Aram is made a grandson of Nahor and
son of Kemuel (whose significance eludes us)
through the lineage of Nahors wife and not
his concubine, thus placing them in
Mesopotamia, not southern Syria.[14] Here,
too, Aram is merely a ‘nephew’, rather than
the ‘father’ of Uz. The Bible closely links
the Hebrew Patriarchs with the Aramaeans:
not only is Abraham a brother of Nahor, but
Isaac and Jacob marry daughters of their
cousins Bethuel ˜the Aramaean and Laban ‘the
Aramaean`, respectively (Gen. 25: 20; 31:
20). It is thus that the narrator attributes
to Laban the Aramaic equivalent for the
Hebrew word gal'ed: yegar sahaduta
˜the stone-heap of witness” (Gen. 31: 47),
an etiology for the place name Gilead. [15]
In one instance a Patriarch himself
(apparently Jacob) is designated as
Arammi ‘obed ˜a roving Aramaean` (Deut.
26; 5; for a similar expression in Assyrian
inscriptions see p. 140 and n. 40).[16] This
tradition conforms with the later Hebrew
names for the ancestral habitat of the
Patriarchs, the district of Harran:
˜Paddan-Aram' (Gen. 25: 20, etc.; Akkadian
paddan, denoting a ‘road’), the field
of Aram (sede Aram; Hos. 12:
12) or 'Aram-Naharaim’, i.e.mainly the
Jezireh`, the Habur, and both banks of the
Euphrates, further west.
As noted above, the appearance of the
Aramaeans in the Patriarchal period is not
confirmed in extra-biblical sources, at
least not as an element important enough to
warrant naming the entire Jezireh after
them. Indeed, epigraphic sources of the
fifteenth-twelfth centuries B.C. refer
simply to Naharaim (Egyptian Naharin(a);
Akkadian Nahrima/Narima), but never to Aram-Naharaim.[17]
Thus the latter appellation, as well as the
alleged Aramaean affinity of the Patriarchs,
appear to be anachronistic concepts,
introduced under the influence of the later
entrenchment of the Aramaean tribes in the
Jezireh region (end of the second millennium
B.C.).[18] The various arguments,
particularly the linguistic ones, put
forward to prove that the Patriarchs were
‘proto-Aramaeans’ have justly been
rejected."[19] That Aram or Aram-Naharaim
was the country of origin of
Cushan-Rishathaim, the first oppressor of
Israel in the period of the Judges (Jud. 3:
8, 11; to be dated c. 1200 B.C.), or of the
still earlier Balaam (Num. 23: 7; Deut. 23:
4), seems also to be anachronistic. As for
Balaam, whose ancestral home was Pethor
(some 20 km. south of Carchemish, on the
western bank of the Euphrates), the
anachronism here may well have come about in
the tenth or first half of the ninth century
B.C., when this city was an actual Aramaean
possession. This is evident from Shalmaneser
III’s Annals for his third year (857 BC.):
The city of Ana-Ashur-uter-asbat, which the
people of Hatti [i.e. the Syrians] called
Pitru [Pethor], which is on the Sagur river,
on the other side of the Euphrates, and the
city of Mutkinu, on this side of the
Euphrates, which Tiglath-pileser my ancestor
. . . had settled-which in the reign of
Ashur-rabi, king of Assyria, the king of the
land of Arumu had seized by force--those
cities I restored to their (former) estate.
(A.R.A.B. i, § 603; for the date of this
conquest see p. 142.)
(iii) Aram-Zobah and the Struggle with David
[20]
By about 1100 B.C.. the Aramaean tribes had
not only expanded in Syria, but certainly
also had penetrated, like the Israelites,
into underpopulated northern Transjordan.
Only with the rise of kingship in Israel,
however --late in the eleventh century, when
the Aramaeans were already consolidated into
various states—did unavoidable conflict
break out between the two growing
neighboring nations. The kingdom of Zobah
now rose to lead the Aramaeans in southern
Syria, and indeed Saul lists it among his
enemies (1 Sam. 14: 47; the M.T. refers
merely to ‘kings of Zobah’, while the LXX
has ‘king', in the singular, mentioning in
addition Beth-Rehob).
Early in Davids reign Aram-Zobah had reached
the peak of its power under the vigorous
Hadezer the son of Rehob (2 Sam. 8: 3), i.e.
a native of Aram-Beth Rehob, who apparently
amalgamated this kingdom with Zobah into a
Personalunion. While Aram-Beth-Rehob
was apparently located in the southern
Lebanon valley, Aram-Zobah lay in the north,
extending north-east of the Anti-Lebanon
into the Syrian desert, towards Tadmor. In
his heyday Hadadezer ruled over vast
territories, founding an of complex
political structure, comprising even
Aram-Damascus and other vassals and
satellites, such as the kingdom of (Aram-)
Maacah, in upper Gaulan, and the land of
Tob, somewhere in northern Transjordan (2
Sam. 10: 6, and cf. v. 19; 1 Chr. 19: 6-7).
In the south his sphere of influence reached
as far as Ammon, while in the north-west he
was checked by the kingdom of Hamath (2 Sam.
8: 9-10). Hadadezer’s expansion in the
north-east, up to the Euphrates and even
‘beyond the river’ (2 Sam. 8: 3; 10: 16; 1
Chr. 19: 16), might well be reflected in the
above cited inscription of Shalmaneser III
(p. 141), according to which a ‘King of
Aram’ conquered areas on both sides of the
Euphrates below Carehemish in the days of
Ashur-rabi, the Assyrian contemporary of
Hadadezer. In a similar retrospective
statement, in the Annals of Ashur-dan II,
the places conquered by the Aramaeans are in
a different area, though most likely also
north of the Upper Euphrates bend.[21] If
the Aramaean king in both these Annals was
indeed Hadadezer, his conquests along the
Euphrates must be dated between the
accession of Ashur-rabi (1012 B.C.) and
Hadadezer's wars against David, in the first
two decades of the tenth century B.C.
David’s threefold victory over Hadadezer and
his allies sealed the fate of this first
Aramaean empire in Syria and brought its
territories under Israelite control. The
chronological chain of events may be
reconstructed as follows; (a) Israel’s
initial war against the allied Ammonite and
Aramaean forces, who had reached even the
plain of Moab (2 Sam. 10: 6 ff.; 1 Chr. 19:6
ff.); (b) the battle of Helam (somewhere in
northern Transjordan), where the Aramaeans
employed auxiliaries from beyond the
Euphrates (2 Sam. 10:15 ff.; 1 Chr. 19:16
ff.); the final, deep penetration which took
David into central Syria, utilizing
Hadadezer’s absence in the Euphrates region,
when the auxiliary forces from Aram-Damascus
were defeated. David took as booty
especially quantities of copper (paralleled
later by the Assyrians in their successes
against Aram-Damascus) from three of
Hadadezer`s cities in Coele-Syria: Tebah
(Tibhath-Tubihi), Cun, and Berothai (2 Sam.
8: 3 ff.; 1 Chr. 18:3 ff.; and cf. Ps.
60:2).
The kingdom of Aram-Zobah thus disappears
from the historical scene, being replaced by
Aram-Damascus. The name Zobah, however,
occurs later, on bricks found at Hamath,
inscribed in Aramaic and apparently
referring to a district within the kingdom
of Hamath (cf. Hamath-Zobah in 2 Chr, 8: 3);
it especially occurs as the name of an
Assyrian province (Subatu/Subutu/Subiti) in
the late eighth and seventh centuries B.C.,
after the final fall of Aram-Damascus and
Hamath.
(iv) The Rise of Aram-Damascus
The kingdom of Aram-Damascus, which became
the foremost Aramaean state in Syria during
the ninth-eighth centuries B.C. was founded
in the latter days of Solomon by Rezon the
son of Eliadah, who removed Damascus from
under Israelite control, making it his
capital (1 Kings 11: 23 ff.), This state was
also referred to simply as ‘Damascus’ or as
‘Aram’ par exellance-- the Bible, in
Assyrian sources, and in Aramaic
inscriptions (the votive stele of Bar-Hadad
and the Zakir inscription both mention the
‘King of Aram’). Neo-Assyrian documents
refer to this kingdom by the enigmatic
appellation sha-imeri-shu (sometimes
even spelt syllabically), literally ‘(the
land) of (his) donkey(s)’ [22] though used
interchangeably with the name Damascus, it
most probably refers only to the country as
such.
The rise of Aram-Damascus was greatly
facilitated by the division of the united
kingdom of Israel, and fully exploited the
continual disputes between Judah and Israel.
The biblical source well illustrates this in
1 Kings 15: 18-19, referring to the war
between Baasha of Israel and Asa of Judah
(in the period 890-880 B.C.), when the
latter induced ‘Ben-Hadad the son of
Tab-Rimmon, the son of Hezion’ to change
sides. The biblical passage first informs us
of the dynastic line at Damascus (the Hezion
there may possibly be the above mentioned
Rezon, founder of the kingdom),[23] and
then of the changes in allies--the first
alliance is between Tab-Rimmon and Asa’s
father, Abijah of Judah; the next between
Ben-Hadad and Baasha of Israel; and finally
there is the proposed military pact between
Ben-Hadad and Judah, which was followed by
an Aramaean campaign wresting eastern
Galilee from Israel (v. 20).[24]
Aramaean pressure on northern Israel
increased even to the point of threatening
its very existence. The Upper Transjordan
region, to Ramoth-Gilead in the south, a
buffer-zone with a mixed Israelite-Aramaean
population (cf. 1 Chr. 2: 23; 7: 14),
changed hands every so often, as is evident
during the Omride dynasty in Israel.
Ben-Hadad (II, apparently), in attempting to
attack the Israelite capital at Samaria with
the auxiliary forces of thirty-two vassal
kings, was repulsed by King Ahab; shortly
afterwards he was again defeated at Aphek in
southern Gaulan (1 Kings 20). The subsequent
treaty returned those towns in Transjordan
conquered by Ben-Hadad I, and granted
Israelite merchants preferential rights in
Damascus, like those enjoyed previously by
the Aramaeans at Samaria
(1 Kings 20: 34). Ben-Hadad II, forced to
reconstitute his army and his kingdom, also
in reaction to a new Assyrian threat,
reduced his vassal states to mere provinces
(cf. 1 Kings 20: 24-25), and thereby
consolidated his empire.[25]
To meet the menace posed by Shalmaneser Ill
of Assyria, a league of twelve western
kings, including Irhuleni, King of Hamath,
and Ahab of Israel, was initiated and led
apparently by Ben-Hadad II (probably the
Adad-idri of the Assyrian sources).
The first clash occurred in 853 B.C. at
Qarqar in the land of Hamath.
The allies had under Adad-idri 1,200
chariots, 1,200 riding horses, and 20,000
infantry; under Irhuleni 700 chariots, 700
riding horses, and 10,000 infantry; and
under Ahab 2,000(!) chariots and 10,000
infantry. The enormous force under Ahab may
have included auxiliaries from Jehoshaphat
of Judah (cf. 1 Kings 22: 4, and also 2
Kings 3: 7), and from vassals such as Ammon
and Moab. The only other independent
Aramaean king participating in this battle
was Baasha, ‘son of Rehob’, from the land or
mountain of Amana (KUR A-ma-na-a-a---
cannot be Ammon, written in Assyrian sources
always as Bit-, but once Ba-an-
Am-ma-na-a-a, with geminated m,
as in the Bible), probably referring to the
Anti-Lebanon, biblical Mount Amana (Song.
1:4) As this Baasha may have combined under
his rule two separate entities, Aram-Beth-Rehob
(see p. 141, on Hadadezer son of Rehob) and
the mountainous region to the east, only a
single contingent of infantry is ascribed to
him (analogous to the combined forces of
Beth-Rehob and Zobah in the war against
David, mentioned in 2 Sam. 10: 6).[26]
A war between Ahab and Ben-Hadad at Ramoth-Gilead
(as in 1 Kings 22) is unlikely so short a
time after the battle of Qarqar, for this
western alliance of kings seems to have
remained intact, meeting Shalmaneser III
again in 840, 848, and 845 B,C. [27] Only
Hazael, who overthrew the Ben-Hadad dynasty,
reversed Aramaean policy towards Israel,
clashing with Ahab’s son Joram in 842 B.C.
at Ramoth-Gilead (2 Kings 8: 28 f.; the
alleged encounter here in the days of Ahab
probably reflects this later event). This
disintegration of the western alliance
finally enabled Shalmaneser to defeat
Aram-Damascus in 841 and 838 B.C., in the
first instance destroying the plantations
and orchards surrounding Damascus, and then
proceeding through the Hauran and Galilee to
Mount Ba’al-rasi (‘Ba'al of the Summit,
possibly Mount Carmel).
Hazael, however, was able to consolidate his
realm after the Assyrian pressure ebbed,
bringing Aram-Damascus to the peak of its
power, and later giving his name to the
synonymous appellation Beth-Hazael, after
the dynastic founder (Amos 1: 4; and in
Tiglath-pileser III’s inscriptions, for
which see below). In the south Hazael first
seized Transjordan down to the Arnon brook
(2 Kings 10; 32 f.), then raided into
western Israel, bringing it to its knees (2
Kings 13: 7, 22), and finally reached the
borders of Judah, which was forced to pay a
heavy tribute (2 Kings 12: 17 f.).
These developments are well reflected in the
Elisha cycle (which assigns the prophet a
part in the overthrow of the Ben-Hadad
dynasty; 2 Kings 5-7; 8: 7-15; and cf. also
the condemnation of Aramaean atrocities
against Israelite Gilead, in Amos 1: 3-5).
The
Aramaeans were able to retain their position
into the reign of Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad
III (2 Kings 13; 3; and cf. 2 Chr. 24: 23
f.), who formed an extensive coalition,
encompassing even southern Anatolia, against
Zakir, King of Hamath and La'ash.
The tide turned, however, when Adad-nirari
III renewed campaigns against the Aramaeans
in Syria in 805-802 B.C. primarily against
Damascus and its king, ‘Mari' (the Aramaic
word for ‘Lord', probably referring to Ben-Hadad
III). On a stele recently found at Tell el-Rimah,
Adad-nirari III records the heavy tribute
extracted from Aram-Damascus (silver,
copper, iron, and fine garments), in
connection with an expedition to the
Mediterranean in 802 B.C., or one against
the district of Mansuate (in the Lebanon
valley) in 796 B.C. (both campaigns are
listed in the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle).
Among the tributaries here is, for the first
time in an Assyrian source, 'Iu’asu the
Samaritan, i.e. King Joash of Israel; [28]
his appellation as ‘the Samaritan’ may imply
(as with the later Menahem `the Samaritan’)
that his kingdom was
initially limited through earlier Aramaean
conquests to the district
of Samaria alone. Because of Damascus’ weak
position Joash was able to deal Ben-Hadad a
threefold blow and recover many cities
lost to the Aramaeans by his father Jehoahaz
(2 Kings 13: 19, 25).
Jeroboam II pursued his father Joash’s
aggressive policy towards
the Aramaeans, who were further weakened by
Shalmaneser IV
during his campaign to Damascus in 773 B.C.
Jeroboam succeeded
not only in freeing all Transjordan but even
in imposing Israelite
domination over Damascus (2 Kings 14: 25,
28). Aram-Damascus
had one final flicker of glory under its
last king, Rezin, who is
mentioned as a vassal of Tiglath-pileser III
in about 738 B.C. He
rebelled and invaded Transjordan, annexing
it as far south as
Ramoth-Gilead, and even raided Elath (2
Kings 16; 6). Forcing
Pekah of Israel to join him, he pressed upon
Jotham, King of
Judah,
and his son Ahaz, who appealed to Assyria
for deliverance
(2 Kings 15: 37; 16: 5, 7 ff.; Isa. 7: 1
ff).
Tiglath-pileser lll crushed Aram-Damascus
once and for all in his campaigns of 733 and
732 B.C., boasting that he destroyed 591
cities in sixteen districts and exiled
numerous inhabitants (cf. 2 Kings 16; 9),
where Rezin’s execution is noted). ‘The
widespread land of Beth-Hazael in its
entirety from Mount Lebanon as far as the
town of Ramoth-Gilead, which is on the
borderland of the land of Beth-Omri I
restored to the territory of Assyria. I
appointed over them officials of mine as
governors.’[29]
Aram-Damascus was then broken up into
Assyrian provinces: Damascus in the centre;
Hauran, Qarnini (biblical Karnaim), and
Gilead in the south; Mansuate in the west;
and Subatu in the north (see p. 143). An
unsuccessful rebellion broke out in Damascus
in 720 B.C., in conjunction with similar
events in Samaria, Arpad, and perhaps also
Sam’al, which were all quelled by Sargon.
The destruction of the erstwhile flourishing
kingdom of Damascus left a deep mark in the
oracles of doom uttered by Amos (1: 3-5),
Isaiah (17; 1-3), and Jeremiah (49:
23-27).[30]
(v) The Legacy
a. Political organization
The combined evidence of the Aramaic,
Assyrian, and biblical sources provides an
insight into the structure and political
groupings of the various Aramaean states, at
least in Syria. We can thus follow the
continual rivalries and constantly changing
alliances among them, as well as the
Aramaization evolving in the tenth-eighth
centuries B.C. in the neo-Hittite states,
such as Ya’dy-Sam’al (capital: modern
Zinjirli), Til Barsip (later capital of Bit-Adini)
in the north, and Hamath in middle
Syria.[31] Though the vast Aramaean
expansion in Hither Asia failed to lead to
pan-Aramaean political or cultural unity,
confederations of considerable
extent, but of changing leadership, did
periodically rise in Syria:
Aram-Zobah--- ca. 1000 B.C.;
Aram-Damascus---ninth century B.C.; Arpad
(mentioned in 2 Kings 18: 34; 19: 13, et
al.; capital; modern Tell Refad, some 30
km. north of Aleppo)---mid-eighth century
B.C. The stature of Arpad about this time is
attested in the Aramaic treaty inscriptions
from Sefire (south of Aleppo),[32] which
contain such indicative terms as ‘all Aram’
and 'Upper and Lower Aram’.
Such pliant and internally loose
confederations, however, readily
disintegrated under outside pressure.
b. Language
Of the few traces of Aramaean culture left
among the peoples with whom the Aramaeans
intermingled, Aramaic and its script are the
outstanding ones. There appear Aramaic
inscriptions, chiefly in Syria (and
interestingly also in the Jordan valley), as
early as the ninth-eighth centuries B.C;.[33]
Though adopting the Phoenician alphabet,
Aramaic developed its own specific form, and
occasionally was even written in other
scripts (in cuneiform on a tablet from Uruk,
and in demotic on Egyptian papyri).
‘Imperial’
Aramaic became the lingua franca of
the Persian period, and (eventually spread
over an area from Asia Minor and the
Caucasus to India, Afghanistan, northern
Arabia, and Egypt.
Aramaic clearly played an important role in
the realm of administration and diplomacy
already in the Babylonian, and even the
Assyrian, empire. There are several
indications of this (apart from the Aramaic
inscriptions and many loan-words from
Mesopotamia), such as the mention of an
‘Aramaic letter’ (egirtu armitu,
employing an Aramaic loan-word) by an
Assyrian official in the second half of the
ninth century B.C.; of ‘Aramaic documents’ (nibzi
armaya, using the Aramaic term nbz) in
the late eighth century B.C., frequent
references to `Aramaean scribes’
alongside Assyrian; and depictions of them
in pairs on reliefs and in wall-paintings
from the time of Tiglath-pileser III onwards
(the one writing on a tablet in cuneiform,
and the other on papyrus or
leather---certainly in Aramaic).[34] The
Bible notes the diplomatic use of Aramaic in
Palestine as well (cf. 2 Kings 18: 26 ff.
--- c. 700 B.C.), as is confirmed by a
letter found at Saqqara in Egypt (600 B.C.;
most likely sent from Philistia).
The spread of Aramaic, facilitated by its
simple script, was furthered by large scale
population movements: mass deportations of
Aramaeans, and their resettlement within the
Assyrian empire;[35] their service within
the Assyrian army and administration; and
their widespread mercantile activities. The
latter, along the international trade
routes, and Aramaean settlements at the
major caravan stations, coupled with their
inherent wanderlust, place them to the fore
of Middle Eastern commerce from the ninth
century B.C. onwards.
c. Religion
Aramaean religious influence on other
peoples is obscure, for the Aramaeans
themselves were readily influenced by their
adopted surroundings. Thus many foreign
deities (e.g. the Canaanite Ba’al-Shemayin,
Reshef, and Melqart; and the Mesopotamian
Shamash, Marduk, Nergal, and Sin) appear in
Aramaean inscriptions. The principal
Aramaean deity in Syria was the ancient
west-Semitic storm-god Hadad, worshipped,
e.g., at Damascus (cf. the dynastic name
Bar/Ben-Hadad). At Sam’al, the Aramaeans
worshipped Hadad alongside the dynastic gods
Rakib-El, Ba’al Hamman, and Ba’al Semed, as
well as Ba`al Harran, whose cultic centre
was at Harran. Other deities venerated among
the Aramaeans are revealed by the theophoric
elements in personal names, especially at
Elephantine and other colonies in Egypt;
these include such gods as Nabu, Bethel, and
the female deities Malkat-Shemayin and Banit,
who also had shrines in the Aramaean colony
at Syene.[36] Traces of Aramaean religion in
the Hellenistic period appear at such places
as Baalbek and Hierapolis, the main cult
centre of Atargatis, the female deity whose
name combines 'atar (as in Aramaic
names, e.g. at Seflre (Atarsamak) and
Elephantine) and 'atta (Anat). Among
the Israelites the influence of Aramaean
worship is evident in Ahaz’s introduction of
the Damascus cult at Jerusalem,
as
reflected in the Damascus-style altar (2
Kings 16: 10-13; and cf. 2 Chr. 28: 23).
The ‘sacrifice’ of Ahaz’s son (2 Kings 16:
3; and cf. 2 Chr. 28: 3) may be further
evidence for such influence, since this was
a cult practice among the Aramaeans exiled
to
Samaria from Sepharvaim; the Adrammelech of
this cult (2 Kings 17; 31) was almost
certainly the god Adad-melek, who, at the
Aramaean centre of Gozan, was also the
subject of such rites. [37]
Note also the worship of Hadad-Rimmon, the
local deity of Damascus, in the Megiddo
plain (Zech. 12: 11; cf. 2 Kings 5: 18). On
the other hand, Aramaean susceptibility to
lsraelite religious influence is evident in
the episode of Naaman, army commander of the
King of Aram-Damascus (2 Kings 5: 15-17). ln
a later period Aramaean religion made itself
felt among the Jewish colonists at
Elephantine, and, in turn, Jewish influence
is seen in such names as Shabbetai in the
Aramaean community at nearby Syene.
d. culture
Excavations at such centers as Tell Halaf
(Gozan, in the ninth century B.C., during
the reign of King Kapara),[38] Arslan Tash
(Hadatha) and Tell Ahmar (Til Barsip),
Zinjirli (Sam’al), Tell Refad (Arpad),
Hamath, have revealed the Aramaean cultural
achievement, especially in architecture,
sculpture, and other arts.[39] The Aramaeans
were always strongly influenced by the
specific local environment, in Mesopotamia
by the remnants of the Mitanni culture and
by the Assyrians, and in Syria by the
neo-Hittites and Phoenicians. Though such
evidence is difficult to interpret, the
zenith of Aramaean material culture seems to
have been reached in the tenth-eighth
centuries B.C.
The Aramaeans though seen by their enemies
as fugitives, treacherous, a roving
people`[40] and in spite of their lack of an
original, creative culture---certainly hold
their special place in history as a major
catalyst of civilization in the ancient Near
East. |
