1 Chronicles 19:6

Made themselves odious . The Hebrew root of very strong force, בָּאשׁ , is here employed, and which our Authorized Version translates, both in the parallel place and elsewhere, far more uncompromisingly than here. A thousand talents . Not stated in Samuel. This talent was of three thousand shekels, believed to be equivalent to f342. Mesopotamia. The parallel place has Aram-beth-rehob, instead of our Aram-naharaim ("Syria of the Two Rivers," i.e. Tigris and Euphrates; Authorized Version, " Mesopotamia "). From comparing this verso with 1 Chronicles 19:16 , it may seem probable that those strictly called " of Mesopotamia " lent either no aid at first or but very partial. It is observable that the numbers of men supplied by Beth-rehob, Zobah, and Ishtob in the parallel place (viz. thirty-two thousand ) agree with the numbers of this verse, from which we may conclude that, whatever Aram-beth-rehob (probably either Reho-both on the Euphrates, or Rehob last of Lebanon) and Aram-naharaim may strictly stand for respectively, they here substantially mean the same. It is possible that the difference is that of a corrupt text or careless copying. The Aram-naharaim ( Mesopotamia ), which comes before us first in Genesis 24:10 , passes out of Scripture language after the defeats of this chapter—the tract of country which it designated (some seven hundred miles by twenty to two hundred and fifty) being absorbed, first by Assyria, and afterwards by Babylon. The Assyrian Inscriptions reveal the fact that Mesopotamia was the prey of a largo number of small separate tribes at the period of the judges and the early Jewish monarchy, which is quite consistent with the glimpses we hero get of it and its people . Aram-maachah probably designates the tract of country north of East Manasseh, bordering on Palestine, and bounded by the Jordan, Mount Hermon, and on its east, Salcah. Zobah (see 1 Chronicles 18:3 , note; 1 Samuel 14:47 ). The parallel place adds also "the men of Ishtob."