[214] These Syrian campaigns in Gilead must have taken place between 839 and 806, the long interval during which Damascus enjoyed freedom from Assyrian invasion.
[215] 2 Kings viii. 12; xiii. 7: cf. above, p. [31].
[216] He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Hazael, continually (2 Kings xiii. 3).
[217] No need here to render prince, as some do.
[218] So the LXX.
[219] The present Baalbek (Baal of the Beḳ'a?). Wellhausen throws doubt on the idea that Heliopolis was at this time an Aramean town.
[220] ix. 7.
[221] Doughty: Arabia Deserta, I. 335.
[222] On the close connection of Edom and Gaza see Hist. Geog., pp. 182 ff.
[223] See Hist. Geog., pp. 194 ff. Wellhausen thinks Gath was not yet destroyed, and quotes vi. 2; Micah i. 10, 14. But we know that Hazael destroyed it, and that fact, taken in conjunction with its being the only omission here from the five Philistine towns, is evidence enough. In the passages quoted by Wellhausen there is nothing to the contrary: vi. 2 implies that Gath has fallen; Micah i. 10 is the repetition of an old proverb.