Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, And all your fortresses will be destroyed, As Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.
which Josephus k calls a city of Galilee, and sometimes a village; and which, according to him, was not far from Sipphore, and in lower Galilee near to which thieves and robbers dwelt in caves and dens, difficult to come at; and so a Jewish writer l places Arbel between Sipphore and Tiberias; and elsewhere m mention is made of the valley of Arbel, near to these places: and Jerom n says, there was the village Arbel beyond Jordan, on the borders of Pella, a city of Palestine; and another of this name in the large plain, nine miles from the town of Legio: and he also speaks of an Arbela, the border of the tribe of Judah to the east; perhaps the same with Harbaalah, whence Arbela, or the mount of Baalah, Joshua 15:11; now one or other of these places might be laid waste by this king of Assyria, in the first year of Hoshea, when he came up against him, and made him tributary: though some think Arbela in Assyria or Armenia is meant, famous for the utter defeat of Darius by Alexander, four hundred years after this, when it might have been rebuilt, and become considerable again: some of the Jewish writers o say there was a place near Nineveh so called; Benjamin of Tudela says p, from Nineveh to Arbel is one "parsa", or four miles: and others q think Samaria itself is meant; but that cannot be, since the destruction of that city is here prophesied of, which should be as this: some conjecture it was the temple of a deity called Arbel, as Schmidt: but, be it what or where it will, here was a great devastation and slaughter made; which at this time was well known, and to which the desolation that would be made in the land of Israel is compared. The Vulgate Latin version is, "as Salmana was wasted by the house of him who judged Baal in the day of battle"; which patrons and defenders of interpret of the slaughter of Zalmunna by Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon; but the names of the one and the other are very different; nor does the text speak of the slaughter of a prince, but of the destruction of a city, and not of Shalman, but of Arbel; and refers not to an ancient, but recent history. Mr. Whiston r places the spoil of Arbela in the year 3272 A.M. or before Christ 732;