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;
Isaiah 7:8- :; and of its founder, and the signification of its name, Isaiah 7:8- :; to which may be added, that though Justin w says it had its name from Damascus, a king of it before Abraham and Israel, whom he also makes kings of it; and Josephus x would have Uz the son of Aram the founder of it, to which Bochart y agrees; yet the Arabic writers ascribe the building of it to others; for the Arabs have a tradition, as Schultens z says, that there were Canaanites anciently in Syria; for they talk of Dimashc the son of Canaan, who built the famous city of Damascus, and so it should seem to be called after his name; and Abulpharagius a says, that Murkus or Murphus, as others call him, king of Palestine, built the city of Damascus twenty years before the birth of Abraham: from this place many things have their names, which continue with us to this day, as the "damask" rose, and the "damascene" plum, transplanted from the gardens that were about it, for which it was famous; and very probably the invention of the silk and linen called "damasks" owes its rise from hence. It is here put for the whole country of Syria, and the inhabitants of it, for whose numerous transgressions, signified by "three" and "four", the Lord would not turn away his fury from them, justly raised by their sins; or the decree which he had passed in his own mind, and now made a declaration of, he would not revoke; or not inflict the punishment they had deserved, and he had threatened. The sense is, that he would not spare them, or have mercy on them, or defer the execution of punishment any longer; he would not forgive their transgressions. So the Targum,