[19] Job 1:15, 17.
[20] Job 1:19.
[21] Psalm 22:12, etc.
[22] Luke 3:1.
[23] Antiquities of the Jews, XV. 10.1.
[24] It is the Abana, or Barada, which waters by far the greater portion of this fertile district. The identification of the Pharpar, which Naaman mentioned also as one of the “rivers of Damascus” (II Kings 5:12), is uncertain. It may have been one of the branches into which the Abana divides as it passes through the city. More probably, however, it was the river now known as the Awaj; for this is the only other stream in the vicinity whose size is comparable to that of the Abana and, though it flows some seven miles south of Damascus, it is used for irrigating a considerable tract of the surrounding orchard-country.
[25] Isaiah 7:8.
[26] Antiquities of the Jews, I.6.4; I.7.2.
[27] The Koran, Sura 56:26f; 61:12.
[28] Estimates of the population of the city vary from 150,000 to a more probable 300,000. Of this number, some 10,000 are Jews, 30,000 are “Greek” and “Latin” Christians, and a few score are Protestants. At least four-fifths of the population is Mohammedan, and Islam is dominant and uncompromising in Damascus, as it is not in cities like Constantinople and Cairo, where Moslem fanaticism is to a greater or less degree held in check by the constant menace of interference by Christian powers.