Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron;
Not until God “gave Israel a saviour,” could they “dwell in their tents as beforetime” 2 Kings 13:5. Hazael extended his conquests to Gath 2 Kings 12:17, intending probably to open a connecting line with Egypt. “With a small company of men” he defeated a large army of Judah 2 Chronicles 24:23-24. Joash, king of Judah, bought him off, when advancing against Jerusalem, with everything of gold, consecrated or civil, in the temple or in his own treasures 2 Kings 12:18. Jehoash recovered from Benhadad III the cities this side Jordan 2 Kings 13:25; Jeroboam II, all their lost territories and even Damascus and Hamath 2 Kings 14:28. Yet after this, it was to recover its power under Rezin, to become formidable to Judah, and, through its aggressions on Judah, to bring destruction on itself. At this time, Damascus was probably, like ourselves, a rich, commercial, as well as warlike, but not as yet a manufacturing (see the note at Amos 3:12) nation. Its wealth, as a great emporium of transit-commerce, (as it is now) furnished it with sinews for war. The “white wool” Ezekiel 27:18, in which it traded with Tyre, implies the possession of a large outlying tract in the desert, where the sheep yield the whitest wool. It had then doubtless, beside the population of its plain, large nomadic hordes dependent upon it.