Battle of Helam

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.

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