The ancient town of Riblah, today a tell covered by a cemetery not far from the town of Ribleh on the

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n side of the border with Lebanon, was in biblical times located on the northern frontier of the land of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

. The site lies on the eastern bank of the

Orontes river The Orontes (; from Ancient Greek , ) or Nahr al-ʿĀṣī, or simply Asi (, ; ) is a long river in Western Asia that begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Hatay Province, Turk ...

, in a wide and fertile plain, 35 miles north-east of

Baalbek Baalbek (; ; ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In 1998, the city had a population of 82,608. Most of the population consists of S ...

and 10 or 12 miles south of the artificial Lake Homs created by the Romans. Brenton translated the place as ''Rablaam'' in his

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

. It was at Riblah that

Necho II Necho II (sometimes Nekau, Neku, Nechoh, or Nikuu; Greek: Νεκώς Β'; ) of Egypt was a king of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC), which ruled from Sais. Necho undertook a number of construction projects across his kingdom. In his reign, accor ...

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

(c. 610 – c. 595 BCE), established his camp after he had routed

Josiah Josiah () or Yoshiyahu was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE). According to the Hebrew Bible, he instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Until the 1990s, the biblical description of Josiah’s ...

's Judahite army at

Megiddo Megiddo may refer to: Places and sites in Israel * Tel Megiddo, site of an ancient city in Israel's Jezreel valley * Megiddo Airport, a domestic airport in Israel * Megiddo church (Israel) * Megiddo, Israel, a kibbutz in Israel * Megiddo Juncti ...

in 609 BCE. Soon after this, the son of Josiah, the newly anointed King Jehoahaz, was made prisoner and held at Riblah to prevent him from ruling Judah; he was later taken to Egypt where he died (). A reference in : :''The nations combined against him ehoahaz he was caught in their pit;'' :''They dragged him off with hooks to the land of Egypt'' is interpreted as stating that Necho had invited Jehoahaz to a conference in Riblah and trapped him there. Some two decades later,

Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

also set up his headquarters here during his campaign against Judah, which culminated in the

destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

in 587 or 586 BCE. King

Zedekiah Zedekiah ( ; born Mattaniah; 618 BC – after 586 BC) was the twentieth and final King of Judah before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. After the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II deposed king Jec ...

was taken captive and brought to Riblah, described as a dependency of Hamath, where he had to witness how his sons were killed, after which he was blinded and taken to Babylon. His officials were also put to death in Riblah (). The town was situated on the main international trade route from Egypt to

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

, via

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and the town of

Carchemish Carchemish ( or ), also spelled Karkemish (), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian ...

where the road crossed over the

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

River. An important strategic asset, Riblah had plenty of water, food and fuel, which made also suitable as a military camp. In Roman times, the town also bore the name Daphne., p
28
(reprinted A. Hart: Philadelphia 1850)

Riblah in Canaan

There was also a town with the same name on the eastern boundary of the land promised to Moses in Canaan, known from , but whose location is still uncertain. The town is described in as "on the eastern side of Ain". Two springs still called ''el-Ain el-Fauqah'' and ''el-Ain el-Tahta'' ("the upper" and "the lower fountain") can still be found about 10 miles east of the Sea of Galilee, close to the town of Samar in

Irbid Governorate Irbid or Irbed () is a governorate in Jordan, located north of Amman, the country's capital. The capital of the governorate is the city of Irbid. The governorate has the second largest population in Jordan after Amman Governorate, and the highest ...

, Jordan.

References

{{EBD, wstitle=Riblah Hebrew Bible cities