Who were the Arameans?

Lud is the next son of Shem; and there is the more need of care, as there was another race of similar name which had its seat in Africa, the first named of the Mizraim or Egyptian peoples, of whom we have spoken (Gen. 10:13). There was thus Ludim of Ham, as well as of Shem. Josephus (Ant. i. § 4) was justified in stating that the latter race settled in Asia Minor, the Lydians. Herodotus (i. 7) says indeed that the Maeones or early dwellers in the far from definite land called Lydia, for its extent changed greatly from time to time, afterward adopted the name of Lydians, being in fact as he thought the same people. But this was a mistake. Even Strabo (xii. xiv.) recognises on ancient testimony, that they were distinct races, as Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, i. 32) and others in modern times are convinced. The Maeones were the early Japhetic settlers whom the Shemitic Lydians conquered. Indeed that careful historian, Dionysius (i. 30), notices that the Lydians had nothing in common with their Pelasgian predecessors. It can hardly be doubted that Jer. 46:9 and Ezekiel 27:10, Ezekiel 30:5, refer to the African race, perhaps Isa. 66:19, though this be not so certain. But they join in the great catastrophe of "that day." Of Aram we shall speak in considering ver. 23.

Aram is the last of the sons of Shem. His name was generally given to the high table-land north-east of Palestine, though applied also more widely in combination with other terms, as will presently be pointed out. In the A.V., following the Septuagint and the Vulgate, "Syria" represents that general use. In the largest sense it comprehended not only the watershed of the Jordan and the country north, west, and east, but that which stretched to the Tigris, with Armenia on the north down to Arabia on the south. In the S.E. quarter it is designated Aram-Naharaim, that is, Syria of the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, translated "Mesopotamia" in Gen. 24:10, Deut. 23:4, Judges 3:8, 10. After 1 Chron. 19:6, we have no longer that name, as the country so named passed under the dominion first of Assyria, and last of Babylon where it attained its supreme place. In early days it was the country where Nahor and his family had a city after leaving Ur (the modern Musheir) of the Chaldees or Kasdim, a Cushite race.

This is the name of a large district lying north of Arabia, north-east of Palestine, east of Phoenicia, south of the Taurus range, and west of the Tigris. It is generally supposed that the name points to the district as the 'Highlands,' though it may be from Aram the son of Shem, as above. The word occurs once untranslated in Num. 23:7, as 'Aram' simply, from whence Balaam was brought, 'out of the mountains of the east;' but it is mostly translated Syria or Syrian. Thus we have -

ARAM-DAMMESEK, 2 Sam. 8:5, translated 'Syrians of Damascus,' embracing the highlands of Damascus including the city.

ARAM-MAACHAH, 1 Chr. 19:6, translated 'Syria-maachah,' a district on the east of Argob and Bashan.

At least five districts of Aram are referred to in scripture. (1) Aram-Dammesek or the Syria of Damascus appears in 2 Sam. 8:5-6; 1 Chron. 18:5-6. (2) Aram-Zobah, or Zobah only, to the N.E. of Damascus we find in 1 Sam. 14:47; 2 Sam. 8:3; 10:6, 8; 1 Chron. 18; 19. (3) Arambeth-Rehob, or Rehob only, occurs in 2 Sam. 10:6, 8. (4) Aram-Maachah, or Maachah only is mentioned in 2 Sam. 10:6; 1 Chron. 19:6. And Geshur in Syria or Aram we hear of in 2 Sam. 15:8, bordering with Maachah on Argob (Deut. 3:14, Joshua 13:11, etc.). These small kingdoms of Aram seem gradually to have merged in that which is first named; as Damascus grew itself in importance. But (5) Aram-Naharaim, or Padan-more correctly Paddan-Aram (called also Padan in Gen. 28:7), the ploughed land of Aram became the most celebrated by far, familiar to us from the days of Jacob. To this Hosea alludes as the field or open country of Syria (Hosea 12:12) almost wholly an immense plain, nearly 700 miles long and from 20 to 250 miles broad.

The language that took its place was much more widely spread: it is called Syrian in the English translation of the Bible, as at 2 Kings 18:26, Dan. 2:4. But it is usual now to call it Aramaic, since Aram is the real biblical word for Syria, and seems to have designated the country North and East of the Euphrates, from which Abraham had originally emigrated, and where afterwards arose that fierce and conquering race which founded Nineveh and Babylon. It used to be called Chaldee, but erroneously; as the only place, where the tongue of the Chaldeans is mentioned, is at Dan. 1:4; and there it manifestly means a language peculiar to a priestly caste at Babylon, not to the whole people.

At the time of our Lord, this was the native language of Palestine; and occurs in our Testaments, in the words Ephphatha, Talitha Cumi, Eli Eli lama Sabacthani, etc. This was also the language of the inscription on the cross, and of St. Paul's speech as recorded at Acts 22. Although in both these instances the Hebrew is mentioned, there is no doubt that it is the modern, not the ancient, language that is meant.

Six nations are mentioned against which judgment is announced, five in this chapter and Moab in the beginning of the second. Eight times we read "saith the LORD." Then in each judgment prediction we find the phrase, "for three transgressions or four ... I will not reverse it." The meaning of it is that the measure is full and that the judgment cannot be averted. Fire is prominently mentioned as the mode of judgment. These nations were the enemies of Israel. The Syrians were the great enemies of Israel and treated them with awful cruelties. The threshing of Gilead with iron instruments took place when Hazael of Damascus conquered the land east of Jordan (2 Kings 10:32-33; 13:7). Hazael murdered Ben-hadad and Elisha predicted all the horrible things he would do to Israel. When the man of God wept and Hazael asked him the reason, Elisha answered, "Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child" (2 Kings 8:12). Damascus was broken and the predicted judgment came. It was executed through the King of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser, who drove the Syrians back to Kir, from which they had come (2 Kings 16:9).

Then we come to particulars. "Thus says Jehovah; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron. But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad." The Spirit begins with the greatest but most external of the enemies here to be enumerated, the Syrians. Their ruthless and persevering efforts cruelly to exterminate the Jews east of the Jordan would not be forgiven. This filled the cup of Syria. "I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the plain of Aven, and him that holds the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir, says Jehovah." The Syrians were to go back captives to Kir (probably Kurgistan, Georgia), whence they had emerged as conquerors and settlers.

"Therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand." Instead of calling upon Benhadad for help, he might have been subdued by Asa, as "escaped out of thy hand" implies. David had reigned over Damascus, and only in the days of Solomon's degeneracy did Syria begin to exist as a separate and independent kingdom. (See 1 Kings 11:23-25.) Its first king "was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon: … and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria," This continued to be the attitude of Syria toward Israel; but it was in God's heart to use Asa to destroy this heathen power, which in future days caused His people so much sorrow and distress. (See 2 Kings 8:11–13.) But he missed his opportunity; and when charged by Hanani with folly, he committed the seer to prison for his faithfulness. "Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison-house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time" — the seer's sympathizers, probably. His petty anger (at what he knew only too well to be the truth) betrays a low condition of soul from which he never evidently recovered; and his end was humiliating as his beginning had been brilliant. "And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians." In all this record, let us hear and take to ourselves the Lord's word, "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear."

Last of all we come to Shem's descendants in vers. 21-31, singularly described as father of all the sons of Eber, brother of Japheth the elder. Eber led the way through Peleg in due time to the father of the faithful. If Shem had not the natural priority over Japheth, he pre-eminently had the blessing, as Canaan the curse. Elam is the first named son, progenitor of those east of Persia proper, occupying the province of which Shushan or Susa was capital. It early rose to power, but faded before the energy of Assyria and Babylon, till with Persia and Media it shared the power of the second world-kingdom. Arphaxad will find his developed place in Gen. 11. The Lydians answer to Lud, and Syrians to Aram. Attention is drawn under Peleg to the significant fact of the earth divided in his day. And the list closes with Joktan and his sons who fill Arabia from S.W. to N.E. as the Ishmaelites, Keturahites, and Edomites distinguish the north and west. But of these we have no particulars till later in the book of Genesis, so that we speak here only of the fact in general.

ARAM-ZOBAH, 2 Sam. 10:6, 8, translated 'Syrians of Zoba,' a district between and Damascus, but not definitely recognised.

ARAM-NAHARAIM signifying 'Aram of two rivers,' Gen. 24:10; Deut. 23:4; Judges 3:8; 1 Chr. 19:6, translated 'Mesopotamia.' The two rivers are the Euphrates and the Tigris. The district would be the highlands from whence the rivers issue to the plain, and the district between the two rivers without extending to the far south.

This word occurs 2 Kings 18:26; Ezra 4:7; and Isa. 36:11, where it is translated 'the Syrian language' or 'tongue;' also in Dan. 2:4, where it is 'Syriack.' Aramaic is the language of Aram, and embraces the language of Chaldee and that of Syria. Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Syria were its proper home. The first time we meet with it in scripture is in Gen. 31:47, where Laban called the heap of witness 'Jegar-sahadutha,' which is Chaldee; whereas Jacob gave it a Hebrew name, 'Galeed.' In 2 Kings 18:26; Isa. 36:11 the heads of the people asked Rab-shakeh to speak to them in Aramaic that the uneducated might not understand what was said. In Ezra 4:7 the letter sent to Artaxerxes was written in Aramaic, and interpreted in Aramaic, that is, the copy of the letter and what follows as far as Ezra 6:18 is in that language and not in Hebrew. So also is Ezra 7:12-26.

In Daniel 2:4 the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, the popular language of Babylon, and what follows to the end of chap. 7: is in that language, though commonly called Chaldee. This must not be confounded with the 'learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans' in Dan. 1:4, which is the Aryan dialect and literature of the Chaldeans, and probably the ordinary language which Daniel spoke in the court of Babylon. Jer. 10:11 is a verse in Aramaic.

A country from which the Syrians had come, and to which they were carried from Damascus by the Assyrians. 2 Kings 16:9; Isa. 22:6; Amos 1:5; Amos 9:7. Being associated with Elam in Isaiah it is supposed to be in Lower Mesopotamia.