What is the significance of Damascus in the Bible?

One of the oldest cities in the world, being mentioned as a known city in the days of Abraham. Gen. 14:15; Gen. 15:2. Josephus says it was founded by Uz, grandson of Shem. It is not again mentioned in scripture until the time of David. It was the capital of Syria. Isa. 7:8. The Syrians of Damascus sided with Hadadezer, king of Zobah, against Israel, but David slew 22,000 of the Syrians. 2 Sam. 8:5. David put garrisons in Syria, and they brought him gifts. 1 Chr. 18:3-6. Rezon escaped and established himself at Damascus as king of Syria and was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon. 1 Kings 11:23-25.

In the N.T. Damascus is of note as the city near to which Paul was converted, and where he received his sight, and began to preach. He escaped from his enemies by being let down by the wall in a basket. Acts 9:2-27; Acts 22:5-11. In 2 Cor. 11:32 its inhabitants are called DAMASCENES. Damascus was the first Gentile city in which Jesus was preached as 'the Son of God;' and though it is now in possession of Muslims, yet in their great mosque a stone has been preserved that formed part of a church erected on the spot, bearing this inscription in Greek: "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." The city is also lamentably memorable on account of the outburst of Muslim hatred in 1860, when on the 9th, 10th and 11th of July not less than 2,500 adult Christians were murdered by them in cold blood, and many besides lost their lives in their flight.

We may here pause for a moment, and notice in passing the hoary city of Damascus. It is intimately connected with the conversion, ministry, and history of our apostle. Besides, it is conspicuous all through scripture.

Damascus is supposed to be the oldest city in the world. According to Josephus(Ant. 1. 6, 4)it was founded by Uz, the son of Aram, and grandson of Shem. It is first mentioned in scripture in connection with Abraham, whose steward was a native of the place: "The steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus." (Gen. 15:2) It is thus a connecting link between the patriarchal age and modern times. Its beauty and richness have been proverbial for full four thousand years. The kings of Nineveh, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome have conquered it, and it has prospered under every dynasty, and outlived them all; but it owes its chief lustre and its everlasting memorial to the name of the Apostle Paul.*

Thus occupied, he approaches Damascus. There, in the full career of an unbroken will, the Lord Jesus stops him. A light from heaven shines round about him, and envelopes him in its dazzling brightness. He falls to the earth, and hears a voice saying unto him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" The glory which had thrown him to the ground left no doubt — accompanied as it was by that voice — that the authority of God was revealed in it. His will broken, his pride overthrown, his mind subdued, he asks, "Who art thou, Lord?" The authority of the One who spoke was unquestionable; Saul's heart was subject to that authority: and it was Jesus. The career of his self-will was ended for ever. But moreover the Lord of glory was not only Jesus; He also acknowledged the poor disciples, whom Saul desired to carry prisoners to Jerusalem, as being Himself.

The circle of Saul was a very different one from that of the Ethiopian. Natural to him was all that which had attracted the other from his own country and all its treasures. He himself tells us that he profited beyond his contemporaries in the Jews' religion. (Gal. 1.) We find him here (Acts 9) in the most eminent instance of his zeal for that religion. Not content with the havoc wrought among believers in the Lord Jesus in the land of Judea, he persecuted them "even unto strange cities." His authority and commission proceeded from the high priest, the chief priests, and the whole estate of the elders. His zeal was so unbounded that he permitted himself no noontide repose. 'While the sun was in its greatest strength he pushed on his way, and had come very near to his desired end. We see him in the pride of his greatness, when suddenly he is struck to the ground by a light surpassing the brilliant orb of day. A blinded man by the glory of that light, he is led by the hand into the city, which he had designed to enter as a vehement persecutor. Here was a complete collapse! For three days and nights he neither ate nor drank; and at the close of that time was spoken of by the Lord as a praying man - one in the confession of perfect weakness waiting in dependence upon God. How was this marvellous change wrought?

Returning, as we believe, from Arabia, Saul consorted with the disciples in Damascus, and that apparently before he preached in the synogogues (Acts 9:19). [34] Now this would be quite in character with his private interview with the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem fourteen years later, when, in company with Barnabas, he communicated privately to them of reputation the Gospel which he preached. The active and notorious persecutor as he had been, intercourse with the disciples, to convince them of his conversion, and it may be to communicate to them the Gospel he was about to preach, would have been but consistent conduct. Soon, however, he was to stand forth openly and manfully for Christ. In Damascus, where his vigilance as an inquisitor was to have been displayed, there his first attempts in preaching the Gospel were made. Attempts shall we call them? Evidently from the outset of his new career the Jews felt they had an antagonist to cope with of no mean order. All his energies, hitherto directed to the stamping out, if possible, of the truth, were now put forth, under the guidance and in the power of the Spirit, to preach that faith amongst the confessors of which he had once made such havoc. A powerful champion he must indeed have been - a Goliath in spiritual power, whom no one in Israel could overthrow or even answer.

Taught of the Spirit and guided by the Spirit, he preached in the synagogues of Damascus. How many there were we know not. There were clearly several. And Saul in his zeal visited them, seeking out his countrymen where they could best be found. All might hear and learn that a preacher had appeared such as people in Damascus had never before listened to. Power, not eloquence, characterised him (2 Cor.10:10). And he preached that which, as far as we know, had never been proclaimed by an Apostle before - that Jesus [35] is the Son of God (Acts 9:20), as well as proving that He is the Christ (22). Peter had proclaimed Him as Lord and Christ at Pentecost (2); subsequently he had preached Him as the Prophet of Deut.18, as the Servant, as the chief corner stone, as a Prince and Saviour, as well as the Prince of life (3,4,5). Saul now preached Him as the Son of God . The very thing for which the Sanhedrin condemned the Lord to death, Saul at Damascus averred was the simple truth. Moreover, that which no other Apostle could say, he could there affirm. He had seen the crucified One in heavenly glory, and had heard words from His mouth. He could therefore present himself to the audience in the different synagogues as the messenger, the Apostle of the Lord Jesus who is in glory. God, he tells us, had revealed His Son in him (Gal.1:16). As Son of God he therefore proclaimed Him, though as yet only to Jews.

Then the Lord Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, a city up in the north of Syria, far away from Jerusalem. The Lord caused Saul to turn completely round. (That is what "conversion" means.) This man who had been trying to destroy the good news, now began to tell it forth everywhere. But he did not go first to any man to learn this good news. If the Lord Jesus had met Saul near Jerusalem, men might have said, "The apostles in Jerusalem taught Saul the good news which he preaches." But there were no apostles at Damascus, and the Lord purposely chose to meet Saul near Damascus, not near Jerusalem. Paul tells us that he did not go up to Jerusalem until after "three years." (Gal. 1:18.)

About a century later, Rezin king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel attacked Ahaz and besieged Jerusalem. Ahaz sent the royal and temple treasures to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria to induce him to resist Rezin. He attacked Damascus, and took it, and carried away the inhabitants to Kir, and slew Rezin, about B.C. 740. 2 Kings 16:5-9; Isa. 7:1-9.

Isaiah prophesied that Damascus should be a ruinous heap, because of its confederacy with Ephraim against God's city Jerusalem. Isa. 17:1: cf. also Amos 1:3-5; Jer. 49:23-27; Zech. 9:1. God had used the kings of Syria to punish Israel; but, as in other cases, He afterwards for their arrogance and cruelty brought them to nought.

So it is in Isaiah 17 Damascus, which was to the north of the Holy Land, was the very ancient and most celebrated city of Syria of old. (See Gen. 15:2) It was to be made a heap of ruins - the cities of Aroer a place for flocks. "The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from [being] a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer [are] forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down and none shall make [them] afraid" (vv. 1, 2). And as of old Syria and Ephraim conspired against the realm of David's son to their own discomfiture, so once more the remarkable feature of this judgement is that God will deal with His people as well as with their old ally. "The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, says Jehovah of hosts. And in that day it shall come to pass, [that] the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall become lean. And it shall be as when the reaper gathers the corn, and reaps the ears with his arm; yea, it shall be as he that gathers ears in the valley of Rephaim" (vv. 3-5). He will gather out all scandals from them and punish the transgressors; He will employ their enmity to purge that threshing-floor of the land of Israel; He will deal in a judicial manner with His people. The nations may lure themselves and each other on with the hope that it is going hard with Israel; but their conspiracy will be offensive to God, however He may use it for Israel's good. This is here described. "And a gleaning shall be left in it, as at the shaking of an olive tree: two, three berries in the tree-top; four, five in its fruitful boughs, says Jehovah God of Israel. In that day shall man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor have regard to [that] which his fingers have made, neither the Asherahs nor the sun-images" (vv. 6-8).

It is well to bear in mind that not Sennacherib but Tiglath-Pileser destroyed Damascus, a ruin that followed the alliance of Pekah and Rezin to depose David's house in Judah, unworthy and false as Ahaz was. This had been predicted by Isaiah in Isa. 7, and our chapter speaks of its being a ruin heap. But the prophecy clearly goes on to its reappearance and overthrow in the latter day.