Dictionaries :: Zoba, or Zobah

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Zoba, or Zobah:

(station) the name of a portion of Syria which formed a separate kingdom in the time of the Jewish monarchs Saul, David and Solomon. It probably was eastward of Coele‐Syria, and extended thence northeast and east toward, if not even to, the Euphrates. We first hear of Zobah in the time of Saul, when we find it mentioned as a separate country, governed apparently by a number of kings who owned no common head or chief (1 Samuel 14:47). Some forty years later than this we find Zobah under a single ruler Hadadezer son of Rehob. He had wars with Toi king of Hamath (2 Samuel 8:10) and held various petty Syrian princes as vassals under his yoke (2 Samuel 10:19). David (2 Samuel 8:3) attacked Hadadezer in the early part of his reign, defeated his army, and took from him a thousand chariots, seven hundred (seven thousand). (1 Chronicles 18:4) horsemen and 20,000 footmen. Hadadezer's allies, the Syrians of Damascus, were defeated in a great battle. The wealth of Zobah is very apparent in the narrative of this campaign. A man of Zobah, Rezon son of Eliadah, made himself master of Damascus where he proved a fierce adversary to Israel all through the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 11:23-25). Solomon also was, it would seem engaged in a war with Zobah itself (2 Chronicles 8:3). This is the last that we hear of Zobah in Scripture. The name however, is found at a later date in the inscriptions of Assyria, where the kingdom of Zobah seems to intervene between Hamath and Damascus.