Telassar (Tel-as'sar) is mentioned three times in the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. First in 2 Kings 19:12 (or according to the Greek Septuagint, 4 Kings 19:12), then in Isaiah 37:12 and in Ezekiel 27:23. According to

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...

, Eden is the name of a kingdom. According to those two scriptures, Tel-assar was a place inhabited by "the people of Eden" and is mentioned along with Gozan and

Haran Haran or Aran ( ''Hārān'') is a man in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. He was a son of Terah, brother of Abraham, and father of son Lot and daughters Milcah and Iscah. He died in Ur of the Chaldees. Through Lot, Haran was the ance ...

, which are in northern

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 ...

, and Rezeph, the exact location of which is not known, several places having had this name. One such site, thought by some to have been part of an ancient district, is identified with modern Rusa’feh, located West of the Euphrates about 145 km (90 mi) South of modern Haran. It is thus in the vicinity of the suggested site of Gozan, with which Rezeph is mentioned.

Sennacherib Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...

boasted, through his messengers, that the gods worshiped by the people of these places had been unable to deliver them from his forefathers. This area concurs with T. G. Pinches' etymological explanation in the ''International Standard Bible Encyclopedia'' as follows:

"As Telassar was inhabited by the 'children of Eden,' and is mentioned with Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, in Western Mesopotamia, it has been suggested that it lay in Bit Adini, "the House of Adinu," or Betheden, in the same direction, between the Euphrates and the Belikh. A place named Til-Assuri, however, is twice mentioned by Tiglath-pileser IV (Ann., 176; Slab-Inscr., II, 23), and from these passages it would seem to have lain near enough to the Assyrian border to be annexed. The king states that he made there holy sacrifices to Merodach, whose seat it was. It was inhabited by Babylonians (whose home was the Edinu or "plain" see EDEN). Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's son, who likewise conquered the place, writes the name Til-Asurri, and states that the people of Mihranu called it Pitanu. Its inhabitants, he says, were people of Barnaku.

References

Hebrew Bible places {{Tanakh-stub