Re'zeph (Ileb. Re'tsepk, BSH, a hot stone, as in 1 Kings xix, 0: Sept. 'Vatrtd). 'VaOnr. v. r. 'Paif>i&), one of the places which Sennacherib mentions, in his taunt- ing message to Hezekiah, as having been destroyed by his predecessor (2 Kings xix, 12; Isa. xxxvii. 12). lie couples it with Haran and other well-known Mesopota- mian spots. It is supposed to he the same that Ptolemy mentions under the name <•{' llhesophu (Pnaoxpct) as a city of Palmyrene (Geog. v, 15); and this, again, is pos- sibly the same with the Rasapka which Abulfeda places at nearly a day's journey west of the Euphrates. The name i> still a common one. Yakut's Lexicon quoting these two and seven other less important towns so called. See Sennacherib.
Rezi'a(Heb.Ritsyah', Jr>2"l, delight; Sept/Paria), the third named of three sons ol Clla. of the tribe of Asher (1 Chron. vii, 39). B.C. perhaps cir. 1618.
Re'zin | Heb. Retsin', ~~'^~.fnn, perhaps prina i. the name of two men.
1. (Sept. 'Paoiv, 'Paaaaiiv.") A king of Damascus, contemporary with Pekah in Israel, and with Jotham and Aha/, in Judaea. The policy of Rezin seems to have been to ally himself closely with the kingdom of Israel, and. thus strengthened, to carry on constant war against the kings of Judah. He attacked Jotham during the Latter part ofhis reign (2 Kings xv, 37); bul his chief war was with Ahaz. whose territories he invaded, in company with Pekah, soon after Aha/, had mounted the throne I \'>A\ cir. 740). The combined army laid Biege to Jerusalem, where Aha/, was. bul "could not prevail against it" (Isa. vii, 1; 2 Kings xvi, 5). Rezin, how- ever, " recovered Elath to Syria" (ver. 6); thai is, he
< pic red and held possession of the celebrated town
of that name at the head of the Gulf of 'Akabah, which commanded one of the most important lines of trade in
the East. Soon after this he was attacked by Tiglatb- pileser II, king of Assyria, to whom \ha/. in his distress had made application. His armies were defeated by the Assyrian hosts; his city besieged and taken; his people carried away cap I i ve into Su-iana ; and he him- self slain (ver. 9; comp. Tiglath-pileser's own inscrip- tions, where the defeat ol Rezin and the destruction of Damascus are distinctly mentioned). This treatment
REZON
1079
REZON
was probably owing to his being regarded as a rebel, since Damascus had been taken and laid under tribute by the Assyrians some time previously (Rawlinson, He- rodotus, i, 467). — Smith.
2. The head of one of the families of the Nethinim who returned from Babylon (Ezra ii, 48 ; Neh. vii, 50). B.C. ante 536.
Re'zon (Hob. Rezon', "J*IT*^, prince ; Sept. 'Pa^iuv v. r. 'Eopwn), the son of Eliadah, a Syrian, who, when David defeated Hadadezer, king of Zobah, put himself at the head of a band of freebooters and set up a petty kingdom at Damascus (1 Kings xi. 23). B.C. post 1043. Whether he was an officer of Hadadezer, who, foreseeing the destruction which David would inflict, prudently escaped with some followers, or whether he gathered his band of the remnant of those who survived the slaughter, does not appear. The latter is more proba- ble. The settlement of Bezon at Damascus could not have been till some time after the disastrous battle in which the power of Hadadezer was broken, for we are told that David at the same time defeated the army of Damascene Syrians who came to the relief of Hadad- ezer, and put garrisons in Damascus. From his posi- tion at Damascus he harassed the kingdom of Solomon during his whole reign. With regard to the statement of Nicolaus in the 4th book ct' his history, quoted by Josephus {Ant. vii, 5, 2), there is less difficulty, as there seems to be no reason for attributing to it any historical authority. He says that the name of the king of Da- mascus whom David defeated was Hadad, and that his descendants and successors took the same name for ten generations. If this be true, Bezon was a usurper, but the origin of the story is probably the confused account of the Sept. In the Vatican MS. of the Sept. the ac- count of Bezon is inserted in ver. 14 in close connection
with Hadad, and on this Josephus appears to have founded his story that Hadad, on leaving Egypt, en- deavored without success to excite Idumea to" revolt, and then went to Syria, where he joined himself with Bezon, called by Josephus Raazarus (PaaZapoi;), who, at the head of a band of robbers, was plundering the country (.4 nt. viii, 7, 6). It was Hadad, and not Bezon, according to the account in Josephus, who established himself king of that part of Syria and made inroads upon the Israelites. In 1 Kings xv, 18, Benhadad, king of Damascus in the reign of Asa, is described as the grandson of Ilezion ; and from the resemblance between the names Rezon and Ilezion, when written in Hebrew characters, it has been suggested that the latter is a cor- rupt reading for the former. For this suggestion, how- ever, there does not appear to be sufficient ground, though it was adopted by Sir John Marsham (Chron. Can. p. 346) and Sir Isaac Newton (Chronol. p. 221), as well as by some later translators and commentators (Junius, Kohler, Dathe, Ewald). Against it are, (a) that the number of generations of the Syrian kings would then be one less than those of the contemporary kings of Judah. But then the reign of Abijam was only three years, and, in fact, Jeroboam outlived both Behoboam and his son. (6) The statement of Nicolaus of Damascus (Josephus, Ant. vii, 5, 2) that from the time of David for ten generations the kings of Syria were one dynasty, each king taking the name of Hadad, " as did the Ptolemies in Egypt." But this would ex- clude not only Hezion and Tabrimon, but Bezon, unless we may interpret the last sentence to mean that the official title of Hadad was held in addition to the ordi- nary name of the king. Bunsen (Bibehcerlc, i, 271) makes Hezion contemporary with Behoboam, and prob- ably a grandson of Bezon. The name is Aramaic, and Ewald compares it with Rezin.— Smith.