Before the Arameans were known by this name, they were nomadic tribes in the desert of the northern Arabian Peninsula. Like the Bedouins before and after them, they pressed from time to time upon the outlying lands of their neighbors in Babylonia and Syria, seeking to possess them. Before the middle of the second millennium BC, these tribes had settled along the banks of the Middle Euphrates valley, where their nationhood and language took shape. It may be supposed that Aramaic descended from a West Semitic dialect that was in use in northwestern Mesopotamia in the first half of the second millennium. They did not acquire their name, "the Arameans," until the days of Tiglath-Pileser I (around 1100 BC), when they settled in the region of the Middle Euphrates reaching to Syria in the west. It was the sudden raids of the early sixteenth century against Babylon and northern Syria that seem to have opened the doors to the Aramean movement and given the newcomers from the desert a firm foothold in that region. The destruction of Mitanni at the hands of the Hittites a century and a half later smoothed the way anew. It became clear that this Aramean migration was, after the Amorite and Canaanite migrations, the third Semitic movement to come from the desert.

Their First Appearance in Mesopotamia

Numerous groups formed parts of the Aramean movement, but they were not known by this name. In addition to the Habiru whom we mentioned earlier, there were the Ahlamu. This designation, which means "the companions," was not an ethnic name, and it seems to have first been applied by the Amorites settled in the Euphrates region to a confederation of tribes. The Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (around 1300 BC) tells us that his father subdued the Ahlamu groups in northern Mesopotamia. In a dispatch sent by Hattushilish around 1275 BC to one of the kings of Babylon there is a reference to the hostile Ahlamu who dwelt along the Euphrates River. Earlier still we read in one of the Tell el-Amarna letters about the Ahlamu in the reign of Akhenaten, and that they were seizing the Syrian cities and lands with the consent of disloyal native rulers, if not under their command. In the documents that came later we find the Arameans and the Ahlamu closely coupled, for King Tiglath-Pileser I says: "I have advanced into the midst of the Ahlamu-Arameans, the enemies of the god Ashur my lord." These Aramean tribes lived in the vicinity of Carchemish, but we then see the Arameans in Babylonia in the east supporting the Chaldu (the Chaldeans or Neo-Babylonians), with whom they had a close connection. Tiglath-Pileser and his successors describe their campaigns in Mat Aramu, the land of the Arameans, in other archaeological inscriptions.

Their Spread in Northern Syria

It is inferred from these Assyro-Babylonian records and others that during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries a large part of Mesopotamia and northern and central Syria was overrun by Semitic groups, and that these regions began to take on an Aramean character, apart from a few Hittite pockets such as Carchemish. The continuous pressure of the Arameans led to their gradual predominance over the Amorites, Hurrians, and Hittites in the Orontes valley and the region beyond it to the north, and to the absorption or expulsion of these peoples. Mount Lebanon was an obstacle in the path of this westward expansion, and the Hittite and Amorite communities continued to flourish there, while the Canaanite cities in the coastal plain remained untouched. Damascus, later the center of an Aramean state, came to be inhabited by the Arameans in 1200 BC. The annals of Ramesses III (1198–1267 BC) give the Aramean spelling of the name of Damascus. The Arameans had probably occupied the city of Harran, one of their centers in Mesopotamia, before their occupation of Damascus. The newcomers gradually adopted the civilization of the Amorites and Canaanites who dwelt among them, yet they retained one aspect of their own civilization, namely the language. Unlike the Israelites and Philistines who settled at the end of the thirteenth century in the southern part of their regions, the Arameans kept their original dialect, which was destined to play a most important role in the life of western Asia thereafter.

The Aramean States in Mesopotamia

By the end of the thirteenth century the Aramean and Israelite movements had come to an end, and the two peoples had become neighbors one to another in their new homeland. The first Aramean states appeared in the region of the Middle Euphrates, which is the passage between Mesopotamia and Syria. One of them was called Aram-Naharaim, and the two rivers meant are the Euphrates and its tributary the Khabur, not the Euphrates and the Tigris. The Egyptian word "Naharin" is a corruption of this very name. This name appears repeatedly in the cuneiform inscriptions from the end of the thirteenth century and tends to disappear after the ninth century, when the Assyrians had crushed the Arameans in this region. Among the other states in Mesopotamia was the state of Paddan-Aram, which was not as extensive as Aram-Naharaim, and whose center was the city of Harran. In fact the two words are used interchangeably in the Old Testament. Harran lay on a great trade route—and the meaning of its name is "road"—and it became one of the greatest centers of Aramean civilization. The Hebrew traditions, which did not forget the ancient Hebrew-Aramean connection, made the ancestors of the Hebrew people come from this region before they settled in Palestine. These traditions say that Abraham sent his messenger to Harran to seek a wife for his son Isaac, namely Rebecca, and that Jacob went himself to marry Leah and Rachel. Thus the ancestors of the sons of Jacob are Arameans on the mother's side. There is a passage that calls the father of the Hebrew nation an Aramean, and the Book of Genesis, which records the beginning of Hebrew history, is filled with expressions of an Aramean cast and with Aramean vocabulary. The ancestors of the Hebrew people spoke Aramaic, as is supposed, before they settled in Palestine and adopted the local Canaanite dialect.

Aram-Damascus

The most important of the many states founded by the Arameans, however, was the one whose center was first at Zobah and then at Damascus. The kingdom of Damascus was founded at the end of the eleventh century, roughly contemporary with the founding of the Hebrew kingdom, and it developed into a great kingdom extending to the Euphrates on one side and to the Yarmuk on the other. It bordered the Assyrian lands in the north and the Hebrew lands in the south. Inland Syria east of Mount Lebanon, northern Syria, and Bashan were under its firm authority around 1000 BC. It is this region of Damascus that the Old Testament means when it refers to Aram or Syria, and these Arameans in Syria were, for two centuries, the bitterest enemies of the Hebrews. Zobah was the capital of a kingdom of the same name, the word deriving from "sahuba," meaning red or copper, and its site is thought to be at Kalis or modern Anjar, south of Zahle in the Bekaa. The clashes between its kings and their Hebrew rivals in the south began in the reign of Saul, founder of the Hebrew kingdom. Among the earliest kings of Zobah was Hadadezer (that is, Hadad-help), whose defeat by David led to that Hebrew king's gaining control over the sources of that important metal, copper. David did not merely defeat Hadadezer and his allies, but also succeeded in occupying Damascus temporarily. A short while later we find Rezon, king of this city, acting as a vassal of Zobah and waging war against Israel "all the days of Solomon." Sovereignty then passed from Zobah to Damascus. When the Hebrew kingdom split into two parts in the year 922 BC, this was to the advantage of the kings of Damascus, who set one kingdom against the other. Ben-Hadad I, king of Damascus (around 879–843 BC), took from the king of Judah precious treasures from the Temple and from the royal palace in Jerusalem, then attacked the king of Israel and brought Gilead in eastern Jordan under Aramean control. In fact, the kingdom [?] of Israel [?] seems to have been nominally subject to Aram from the latter part of the reign of its king Omri (around 875 BC), and when Ahab, son and heir of Omri, refused to pay tribute or to join the alliance against the impending Assyrian attack, Ben-Hadad appeared suddenly before his capital, Samaria, to compel him to obedience.

The Battle of Qarqar

This Assyrian invasion reached its climax in the battle in which Shalmaneser III fought in the year 853 BC. The coalition of Syrian kings comprised twelve kings led by Ben-Hadad, whose army numbered 20,100 chariots, 20,100 horsemen, and 200,000 infantry. King Ahab brought the second army in strength, and after him came the army of the king of Hamath, while the kingdoms of many Phoenician cities contributed their forces to take part in the battle. The number of the armies that stood against Shalmaneser at the battle of Qarqar on the Orontes was 600,000 soldiers, and it ended without a decisive result. The Assyrians had to wait many years before they were able to subdue Damascus.

Hazael

The heir of Ben-Hadad, named Hazael (meaning "El has seen," around 508 BC), appears as the greatest warrior in Aramean history. After withstanding two assaults launched by Shalmaneser in 842 and 838 BC, he led a campaign against Israel and extended his possessions in eastern Jordan southward as far as the river Arnon (the Mujib), which flows into the Dead Sea. Jehu (around 842–814 BC), who paid tribute to Shalmaneser, was the king of Israel at that time. Israel was at the mercy of Aram in the reign of Jehoahaz, heir of Jehu, so much so that Hazael left him no force save fifty horsemen and ten chariots. Hazael extended his conquests as far as the coastal plain of Palestine, intending to seize the trade route with Egypt and Arabia. Then "Hazael turned his face to go up to Jerusalem," but they prevented him from doing so after they had given him the gold and treasures that were in the Temple. When the power of those who succeeded Hazael was weakened by the Assyrian attacks, they were unable to maintain the borders of their kingdom in the southern regions, and the old borders were restored to their former state in the time of King Jeroboam II, who became king in Samaria in the year 785 BC. This king went further, beginning to attack Damascus and Hamath. The real danger, however, came from another quarter, for the Assyrian military power was ready to march anew. The opportune moment came in 734 BC, when Ahaz, king of Judah, was seriously threatened by Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Damascus. He requested the intervention of the Assyrians, and Tiglath-Pileser III answered his request and overran the sixteen provinces subject to Damascus, together with its cities numbering 591, "and destroyed them until they became like the mounds left by a flood." Among the kings subject to Assyria who fought and fell before the walls of Damascus was Panammu II, king of Sham'al (Zincirli) in the far north. Rezin himself fled and "like a fox entered the gate of his city." There he became besieged "like a bird in a cage." But the siege continued. At last the city was taken in the year 732 BC, and its king was killed, and the trees of its orchards—its pride in every age—were cut down, "and not one of them was spared." Its people were exiled, and thus the affair of Aram-Damascus came to an end, and with it Aramean sovereignty ended forever.

To Be Continued in the Next Issue