Note 487 — Chapter VI · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY (continued 2)

The fact that the Assyrian king Shalmaneser II. calls Baasha, the contemporary king of Ammon, ‘the son of Rukhubi’ or Rehob, just as he calls Jehu ‘the son of Omri,’ shows that Rehob was a personal name. The Biblical Beth-Rehob is parallel to Bit-Omri, a designation of Samaria in the Assyrian texts. Beth-Rehob is placed near Dan in Judg. xviii. 28. In 1 Chron. xix. 6, Aram-Naharaim is apparently substituted for Aram-Beth-Rehob, though, as the dominions of Hadad-ezer extended to the Euphrates, soldiers may have come to the help of the Ammonites from Mesopotamia, as well as from Beth-Rehob. The name of Hadad-ezer is incorrectly given as Hadar-ezer in 2 Sam. x. 16. It appears as Hadad-idri in the Assyrian inscriptions (with the Aramaic change of z to d), where it is the name of the king of Damascus, called Ben-Hadad II. in the Old Testament.