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;
The advantage of its site doubtless occastoned its early choice. It lay on the best route from the interior of Asia to the Mediterranean, to Tyre, and even to Egypt. Chedorlaomer and the four kings with him, doubtless, came that way, since the first whom they smote were at Ashteroth Karnaim Genesis 14:5-6 in Jaulan or Gaulonitis, and thence they swept on southward, along the west side of Jordan, smiting, as they went, first the “Zuzim,” (probably the same as the Zamzummim Deuteronomy 2:2 O) in Ammonitis; then “the Emim in the plain of Kiriathaim” in Moab Deuteronomy 9:11, then “the Horites in Mount Seir unto Elparan” (probably Elath on the Gulf called from it.) They returned that way, since Abraham overtook them at Hobah near Damascus Genesis 14:15. Damascus was already the chief city, through its relation to which alone Hobah was known. It was on the route by which Abraham himself came at God’s command from Haran (Charrae of the Greeks) whether over Tiphsaeh (“the passage,” Thapsacus) or anymore northern passage over the Euphrates. The fact that his chief and confidential servant whom he entrusted to seek a wife for Isaac, and who was, at one time, his heir, was a Damascene Genesis 15:2-3, implies some intimate connection of Abraham with Damascus. At the time of our era, the name of Abraham was still held in honor in the country of Damascus ; a village was named from him “Abraham’s dwelling;” and a native historian Nicolas said, that he reigned in Damascus on his way from the country beyond Babylon to Canaan. The name of his servant “Eliezer” “my God is help,” implies that at this time too the servant was a worshiper of the One God. The name Damascus probably betokened the strenuous , energetic character of its founder.