2 Chronicles 8:3 - Exposition

Hamath-zobah . Hamath was a place both of great geographical note and of great historical note from the time of the Exodus to that of Amos. The town, or city, is to be understood to be the Great Hamath ( Amos 6:2 ). But the kingdom, or district, or county, was almost conterminous with Coele-Syria. Zobah, also a portion of Syria, amounted to a small kingdom, and is read of alike in Saul's and in David's times, as in Solomon's time. It probably lay to the north-east of Hamath ( 1 Samuel 14:47 ; 2 Samuel 8:8 , 2 Samuel 8:7 , 2 Samuel 8:8 , 2 Samuel 8:10 ; 2 Samuel 10:9 , 2 Samuel 10:16 , 2 Samuel 10:19 ; 1 Chronicles 18:4 ; 1 Chronicles 19:16 ). But Hamath-zobah of this verse was probably a place called Hamath, in the region of Zobah, in which also two other cities are mentioned, Berothai and Tibhath, or Betah ( 2 Samuel 8:8 ; 1 Chronicles 18:8 ). These two kingdoms of Hamath and Zobah, contiguous as they were, seem as though they purposed to compliment one another—Zobah by naming one of its towns Hamath, and vice versa It is said that the Assyrian inscriptions show that they remained, after Solomon, distinct kingdoms.