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ARAMEANS

(Heb. ʾărammîm)

The designation for a large number of peoples who spoke related dialects of the West Semitic language known as Aramaic. The Aramean peoples flourished from the late 2nd millennium b.c.e. in Syria, and spread southeastward into Mesopotamia and southwestward into central and southern Syria during the early 1st millennium. The Aramean states of Zobah, Damascus, Beth-rehob, Geshur, and Maacah in southern Syria played important roles in the history of biblical Israel. While they never coalesced into a single large political or cultural entity, the Arameans played an important part in Near Eastern history.

The Israelites felt a close cultural relationship with the Arameans and described it in the traditions preserved in the book of Genesis. In Gen. 22:21 Aram, the eponymous ancestor of the Arameans, is described as the grandson of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, while in the Table of Nations in Gen. 10:22 Aram is said to be one of the sons of Shem. In Gen. 25:20; 31:20 Abraham’s relatives Bethuel and Laban are called Arameans, and Jacob himself is called a “wandering Aramean” in Deut. 26:5. These traditions of family relationships must be seen in the context of general belief expressed in Genesis that Israel was related by blood to most of the Semitic-speaking peoples around them (with the exception of the Canaanites). They do not provide us with significant historical insight into the complex origins of the various ethnic groups in Syria-Palestine.

The Arameans are presumably the descendants of the Amorite peoples who lived in Syria during the first half of the 2nd millennium. But the earliest clear references to people called Arameans only occur in Assyrian texts from the late 12th and early 11th centuries. Tiglath-pileser I fought a series of battles at that time with Aramean tribes along the course of the Middle Euphrates River in the Mt. Bishri region of Syria. By the late 11th and early 10th centuries, several Aramean states had emerged in Upper Mesopotamia and in Syria, including Bir-zamani, Bīt-bahiani, Bīt-ḫalupe, and Laqu on the Tigris and ³abur Rivers, Bīt-adini along the Great Bend of the Euphrates River, Yahan (later called Bīt-agusi) W of Bīt-adini, and Samʾal, a small city-state known because of the large number of inscriptions found at the site. Hamath, in central Syria, apparently had a mixed population of Arameans and Anatolians. In southern Syria two other Aramean states, Aram-zobah and Aram-Damascus, became important political powers, the former in the 10th century, the latter in the 9th and 8th centuries. A number of Aramean tribes also migrated southward into Mesopotamia in the late 2nd millennium.

Israel came into conflict with Aram-zobah during David’s reign in the late 11th or early 10th century. When Zobah, apparently the dominant political power in the region at the time, intervened in a conflict between Ammon and Israel, David’s army fought them to a stalemate (2 Sam. 10:15-19 = 1 Chr. 19:16-19). Meeting again at the site of Helam, Israel defeated the army of Zobah and brought many of the latter’s allies into Israel’s orbit. A third battle described in 2 Sam. 8 may be a variant version of the battle of Helam, but is more likely an account of a final battle between the two states in which Zobah was decisively defeated. It never again played a major role in Syro-Palestinian history.

By the early 9th century Aram-Damascus had emerged as a formidable power, attacking northern Israel during the reign of Baasha (1 Kgs. 15:16-22) and leading a 12-state coalition (including Israel under Ahab) against the invasion of northern Syria by Shalmaneser III of Assyria in 853 (cf. the inscriptions of Shalmaneser in ANET, 278-81). In three confrontations with Shalmaneser (853, 848, 843), Hadadezer of Aram-Damascus and the coalition held back the Assyrian army. Shortly thereafter (ca. 842/841) Hazael, a usurper, seized the throne in Damascus (cf. 2 Kgs. 8:7-15) and the coalition collapsed. Hazael was forced to fight alone against Shalmaneser III three additional times (841, 838, 837), but was never fully defeated. After Shalmaneser turned his attention elsewhere, Hazael proceeded to create an empire around Damascus, dominating virtually all the states south of Damascus, including Israel and Judah (2 Kgs. 10:32-33; 12:17-18). For ca. 40 years Damascus was at the peak of its power.

The tables were turned, however, early in the 8th century, when Hazael’s son Bir-hadad lost the empire his father had created. Israel regained its independence in a series of battles during the reign of King Joash (2 Kgs. 13:22-25) and actually dominated Damascus for a while during the reign of Jeroboam II (14:28). Eventually Damascus, like the other states of Syria, was annexed into the Assyrian Empire and lost its status as an independent state.

The Arameans’ primary cultural contribution to ancient Near Eastern civilization was its language and script. Aramaic came to be the predominant language of Syria early in the 1st millennium, but it spread from there across the Near East. The Assyrian policy of deporting large portions of the population of rebellious states led to a large number of Arameans living in Assyria itself. By the mid-8th century the Aramaic language was extensively used in Assyria, and by the 6th century it was the predominate language in Mesopotamia. Aramaic became the official lingua franca of the Persian Empire, and by Hellenistic times the language and script had replaced most of the local languages and scripts of Syria-Palestine, including Hebrew. Aramaic translations of the biblical text (the Targums) were made and used beside the original Hebrew texts. Aramaic was probably the primary language of Jesus of Nazareth, and, as Syriac, continued to be used by portions of the Eastern Church for centuries.

Bibliography. J. A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 B.C. AnOr 43 (Rome, 1968); J. C. Greenfield, “Aramaic Studies and the Bible,” VTSup 32 (1981): 110-30; “Aspects of Aramean Religion,” in Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride (Philadelphia, 1987), 67-78; J. D. Hawkins, “The Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia,” CAH² 3/1:372-441; W. T. Pitard, Ancient Damascus (Winona Lake, 1987); “Arameans,” in Peoples of the Old Testament World, ed. A. J. Hoerth, G. L. Mattingly, and E. M. Yamauchi (Grand Rapids, 1994), 207-30.

Wayne T. Pitard