Rhodes is also mentioned in 1 Mac 15^ among the States to which the Romans sent letters on behalf of the Jews about B.C. 138 (see Phaseli.s, LyCIA, Delos, etc.). Only self-governing free States were thus addressed ; and Rhodes, as almost the greatest maritime State of the eastern Medi- terranean, was of course included. The ships carrying Jews from the west and from the .-Egean coasts and cities to and from Jerusalem, for the Passover, would all, as we have seen, call in ordinary course at Rhodes. Such ships are implied in Ac 18'*"^ 20^. It may be taken as practically certain that in a great commercial centre like Rhodes there would be Jews resident ; but hardly any memorial of them has been preserved.
In Ezk 27" the Septuagint reads 'Sons of the Rhodians were thy merchants'; where AV and RV have 'The men of Dedan were thy merchants' (•rafJickers, RV). There can be little doubt that the Septuagint text in this passage is a change made by translators in the 3rd cent. B.C., who had no knowledge of the desert carrier tribe Dedan, but were familiar with the Rhodians as the greatest merchants of their time in the Levant (see 1 >EDAN). In Gn 10^ and in 1 Ch 1', also, the Septuagint text has ■ Rhodians' ('PMioi) as the fourth of the sons of Javan ; but RV, following the Hebrew text, has Dodanim in the former place and Rodanim in the latter (AV Dodanim in lioth places). Among the sons of Javan, Rhodes, which was inhabited by Greeks (though by Dorians, not loniana ; see Dodanim), would be quite suitable ; and the Sei>tuagint text is accepted by most modems in those two places.
The island of Rhodes is abont43 miles long from N.E. to S.W. by 20 miles where the breadth is greatest ; its nearest point is about 12 miles from the mainland. The famous colnxsus was a statue of the sun-god, 105 feet in height, which stood at the harbour entrance. It was erected to com- memorate the success of the Rhodians in with- standing the siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes in B.C. 2m ; but it fell during an earthquake in 224, and the fragments remained lying, sliown as a curiosity till A.D. 672, when the Arab ''cneral who conquered Rhodes is said to have sold them to a Jew of Emesa. The island was soon afterwards reconquered by the Byzantine arms, and remained in Christian hands for many centuries. The most interesting and glorious period of Rhodian history in many respects began in 13KI, when the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem took the city from the Byzantine empire, and founded a State, including several of the neighbouring small islands and some towns on the mainland, especially llalicarnassus and Smyrna (the latter being taken in 1345, and held till 1403). The Knights of Rhodes were en- gaged in ceaseless warfare with the Turks. The • Joe Ant. xn. rlv. it.; BJ i. xiv. 8.
city, which was very strongly fortified by the Knights, was besieged unsuccessfully in 1440, 1444, and 1480; but at last, in 1522, the Knights sur- rendered on honourable terms to Sultan Suleiman, and retired to Crete, then to Sicily, and finally to Malta. The modern town of Rhodes is full of memorials of the time of the Knights, and con- tains hardlj' any apparent traces of its older history. Its harbours have been allowed to become choked with sand, and its trade is c|uite insignili- cant. \V. M. Ramsay.
RH0D0CU3 f PiSoKos).— A Jew who betrayed the secrets of his countrymen to Antiochus Eupatoi. He was detected and imprisoned, 2 Mac 13-'.
RIBAI ('jn ; LXX in 2 S "Pti/Si, in 1 Ch B 'Vc^U, A'?iji3al, ^? 'PoiSeiaO.— The father of Ittai (1 Ch Ithai) the Bcnjamite, one of David's thirty heroes (2 S 23^=1 Ch IP').
RIBLAH.— 1. (.1^2-!, once, Jer 52'», np^nn ; LXX 2 K 25=' 'Pe^XaSd, elsewhere Ae^Xadd, and other corrupt forms). — The name of a place in the ' land of Pamath,' now Ribleh, in the Bekii'a, or broad vale between the two ranges of Lebanon and Hermon, on the right bank of the Orontes, about 100 miles N.N.E. of Dan, 05 mUes N. of Damascus, and 50 miles S.S.W. of Hamath (which see). It was at Riblah that Pharaoh-neeoh, three months after his defeat of Josiah at Megiddo (B.C. G08), in some way obtained the presence of his successor, Jehoahaz, and threw him into chains that he nii;;lit no longer reign in Jerusalem (2 K 23^^). Riblah is also mentioned as the place which, at the close of the sie^e of Jerusalem (B.C. 58G), was Nebuchad- nezzar's headquarters, and to which Zedekiah, and other prisoners taken out of the captured city, were brought for punishment (2 K 25°'- = Jor39»-'' = Jer52»'-; 2K 25-"- =' = Jer 52=«-'"). Riblah is now nothing more than a 'miserable' village of 40-50 houses (Rob. BRF iii. 543) ; but Robinson {ib. p. 545) points out how, from its situation, on the banks of a mountain stream, and in the middle of a vast and fertile plain, and also on the great roa<l leading from Egypt and Palestine to BabyUm, it was a suitable resting-place, whether for the army of Necoh, who had designs on Babylon, or for Nebuch., wliile watching the operations that were taking place in Judah. See, further, on the modern Ritileh, Sachau, Reise in Syrlen (1883), 55-57. ' Riblah ' is likewise read by most modern scholars (Ges., Ew., Smend, Cornill, etc.), with 4 MSS, in Ezk &* for ' Diblath ' (nip^Di i;-;-?-) : 'I will make the land desolate from tlie wilderness (on the S. of Judah) to Hiblah (in the far North),' the expression being regarded as a designation of the whcde extent of Palestine, to its ideal limits, and Riblah being perhaj)S mentioned instead of the usual 'entering in of tlamath' (Nu 34", 2 K 14-^, Am 6", Ezk 47-° al.), on account of its having become prominent at the time (B.C. 592 — see Ezk V). If the ' approach to l,Iamath ' is rightly placed at the N. end of the broad vale between Lebanon and Anti-Libanus, where, as the traveller from the S. approaches Riblah, he finds himself entering a new district, and sees the country towards yanmth open out before him (see esp. van de Velde, Aarra- tivc, 1854, ii. 470; and cf. Rob. liRP iii. 568; Moore, Jurhie.i, 80, 82; also Jos 13»,* Jg 3'), this reading will bo quite natural. Other scholars, however, doubt whether the Isr. territory can ever have been regarded as extending as far as the N.