2. Aram'-Maakah', hSSB tnx (l Chron. xix, 6), or simply Maakah (2 Sam. x, G, 8), which, if formed from ?IS73, to "press together," would describe a country enclosed and hemmed in by mountains, in contradistinction to the next division, Aram-beth- Rehob, i. e. Syria the wide or broad, fT^a being used in Syria for a " district of country." Aram-Maachah was not far from the northern border of the Israelites on the east of the Jordan (comp. Deut. iii, 14, with Josh, xiii, 11, 13). In 2 Sam. x, G, the text has " King Maachah," but it is to be corrected from the parallel passage in 1 Chron. xix, 7, " king of Maachah." See Maachah.
3. Aram'-beyth-Reciiob', S"in"l n^a C1X, the meaning of which may be that given above, but the precise locality cannot with certainty be determined (2 Sam. x, G). Some connect it with the Beth-rehob of Judg. xviii, 28, which Rosenmuller identities with the Rehob of Num. xiii, 21, situated " as men come to Hamath," and supposes the district to be that now known as the Ardh el-IIhule at the foot of Anti-Liba- nus, near the sources of the Jordan. A place called Rehob is also mentioned in Judg. i, 31 ; Josh, xix, 28, 30; xxi, 31; but it is doubtful if it be the same. Michaelis thinks of the Rechoboth-han-Nahar (lit. streets, i. e. the village or town on the River Euphrates) of Gen. xxxvi, 37; but still more improbable is the idea of Bellermann and Jahn that Aram-beth-Rehob was beyond the Tigris in Assyria. See Rehob.
4. Aram'-Tsobah', i"D"iX fi^K, or, in the Syriac form, X3i^, Tsoba (2 Sam. x, G). Jewish tradition has placed Zobah at Aleppo (see the Itinerary of Ben- jamin of Tudela), whereas Syrian tradition identifies it with Nisibis, a city in the north-east of Mesopo- tamia. Though the latter opinion long obtained cur- rency under the authority of Michaelis (in his Dissert, cle Syria Sobwa, to be found in the Comment. Soe. Gut- ting. 1769), yet the former seems a much nearer ap- proximation to the truth. We may gather from 2 Sam. viii, 3; x, 1G, that the eastern boundary of Aram-Zobah was the Euphrates, but Nisibis was far beyond that river; besides that in the title of the six-
Z
tieth Psalm (supposing it genuine) Aram-Zobah is clearly distinguished from Aram-Naharaim, or Meso- potamia. It is true, indeed, that in 2 Sam. x, 16, it is said that Hadarezer, king of Zobah, brought against David "Aramites from be^yond the river," but these were auxiliaries, and not his own subjects. The peo- ple of Zobah are uniformly spoken of as near neigh- bors of the Israelites, the Damascenes, and other Syr- ians ; and in one place (2 Chron. viii, 3) Hamath is called Hamath-Zobah, as pertaining to that district. We therefore conclude that Aram-Zobah extended from the Euphrates westward, perhaps as far north as to Aleppo. It was long the most powerful of the petty kingdoms of Aranuca, its princes commonly bear- ing the name of Hadadezer or Hadarezer. See Zobah.
5. Aram'-Nahara'yim, D^rtJ E^X, i. e. Aram of the Two Rivers, called in Syriac "Beth-Nahrin,"i. e. " the land of the rivers," following the analogy by which the Greeks formed the name MtaoTrorafjiia, "the country between the rivers." For that Meso- potamia is here designated is admitted universally. The rivers which enclose Mesopotamia are the Eu- phrates on the west and the Tigris on the east ; but it is doubtful whether the Aram-Naharaim of Scrip- ture embraces the whole of that tract or only the northern portion of it (Gen. xxiv, 10 ; Deut. xxiii, 4 ; Judg. iii, 8; 1 Chron. xix, G; Psa. Ix, title). Apart of this region of Aram is also called Paddari -Aram' ', □ IX "j'lQ, the plain of Aram (Gen. xxv, 20; xxviii, 2, 6, 7 ; xxxi, 18 ; xxxiii, 18), and once simply Paddan (Gen. xlviii, 7), also Sedeh' -Aram , Q^X "T?E?i the field of Aram (Hos. xii, 13), whence the " Campi Mesopotamia;" of Quintus Curtius (iii, 2, 3; iii, 8, 1 ; iv, 9, 6). See Padan ; Sadeh. But that the whole of Aram-Naharaim did not belong to the flat country of Mesopotamia appears from the circumstance that Balaam, who (Deut. xxiii, 4) is called a native of Aram-Naharaim, saj-s (Num. xxiii, 7) that he was brought "from Aram, out of the mountains of the east." The Septuagint, in some of these places, has MtTOTrora/d'rt SiyxW, and in others Hvpta norauwr, which the Latins rendered by Syria Interamna. See Mesopotamia.
6. But though the districts now enumerated be the only ones expressly named in the Bible as belonging to Aram, there is no doubt that many more territories were included in that extensive region, e. g. Geshur, Hul, Arpad, Riblah, Hamath, Helbon, Betheden, Ber- othai, Tadmor, Hauran, Abilene, etc., though some of them may have formed part of the divisions already specified. See Ish-tob.
A native of Aram was called ^E^X, Arammi' ' , an Aramrean, used of a Syrian (2 Kings v, 20), and of a Mesopotamian (Gen. xxv, 20). The feminine was iT^H^X, Arammi 'yah' ', an Aramitess (1 Chron. vii, 14), and the plural CPHnx, Arammim' (2 Kings viii. 29), once (2 Chron. xxii, 5) in a shortened form CX?, Rammim '. See Aram.ean Language. Traces of the name of the Aramaeans are to be found in the "Apifioi and 'Apa^icuoi of the Greeks (Strabo, xiii, 4, 6; xvi, 4, 27; comp. Homer's Iliad, ii, 783; Hesiod, Theoqn. 304). See Assyria. The religion of the Syrians was a worship of the powers of nature (Judg. x, G ; 2 Chron. xxviii, 23 ; see Creuzer, Symbol, ii, 55 sq.). They were so noted for idolatry, that in the lan- guage of the later Jews X71T SIX was used as synony- mous with heathenism (see the Misehna of Surenhusius, ii, 401 ; Onkelos on Levit. xxv, 47). Castell, in bis /.. xic. HeptagloU. col. 229, says the same form of speech prevails in Syriac and Ethiopic. The Hebrew letters -I, resh, and -j, dolt th, are so alike, that they were often mistaken by transcribers ; and hence, in the Old Test- ament, C^iX, Aram, is sometimes found instead of D1X, Edom, and vice versa. Thus in 2 Kings xvi, G,