Hadade´zer (Hadad-helped), or Hadad-rezer, king of Zobah, a powerful monarch in the time of David, and the only one who seems to have been in a condition seriously to dispute with him the predominancy in south-western Asia. He was defeated by the Israelites in the first campaign (B.C. 1032) in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, with a great loss of men, war-chariots, and horses, and was despoiled of many of his towns (; ). This check not only impaired, but destroyed his power. A diversion highly serviceable to him was made by a king of Damascene-Syria (whom the Scripture does not name, but who is the same with Hadad, 3), who, coming to his succor, compelled David to turn his arms against him, and abstain from reaping all the fruits of his victory (, sq.; , sq.). The breathing time thus afforded Hadadezer was turned by him to such good account that he was able to accept the subsidies of Hanun, king of the Ammonites, and to take a leading part in the confederacy formed by that monarch against David. The first army brought into the field was beaten and put to flight by Abishai and Joab; but Hadadezer, not yet discouraged, went into the countries east of the Euphrates, and got together the forces of all his allies and tributaries, which he placed under the command of Shophach, his general. To confront so formidable an adversary, David took the field in person, and in one great victory so completely broke the power of Hadadezer, that all the small tributary princes seized the opportunity of throwing off his yoke, of abandoning the Ammonites to their fate, and of submitting quietly to David, whose power was thus extended to the Euphrates.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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