288 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
But it is now pretty certain that there was a city called Hadrach in the neighbourhood of Damascus, for compara tively recent monumental historical discoveries have in this, as in so many instances beside, confirmed and thrown light on the Hebrew text. In the list of Assyrian eponyms that is, the list of the various officers after whom the Assyrian years were named in a certain definite order, the kings themselves acting in due course as eponyms we read, in B.C. 772, in the eponymy of Assur-bel-ezer, governor of Calah, of an " expedition to Hadrach " (Ha-ta- ri-ka). This statement immediately follows the name of the governor of Sallat (or Salmat, as Rawlinson and Schrader give the name), who was the eponym in the previous year, when an expedition was made to the city of Damascus. Hadrach (or Hatarika) figures also in the expeditions in the eponyms of later Assyrian kings and generals.
Sir Henry Rawlinson says that in the catalogue of Syrian cities tributary to Nineveh (of which we have several copies in a more or less perfect state, and varying from each other both in arrangement and extent) there are three names which are uniformly grouped together, and which read Manatsuah, Magida (Megiddo), and Du ar (Dor). " As these names are associated with those of Samaria, Damascus, Arpad, Hamath, Carchemish, Hadrach (or Hatarika) and Zobah, there can be no doubt about the position of the cities." x
We proceed to the next line "And Damascus shall be its resting-place"; 2 that is, the judgment which is the " burden " of this prophecy shall first of all have Damascus
1 Those interested in this subject will find full notes and long quotations from Rawlinson, Schrader, etc. , in Dr. Wright s Zechariah and his Prophecies, and in Pusey in his Minor Prophets.
2 nrmp (menuchah) is indeed commonly used of "quiet, peaceful resting," and some (as already the Targum) have understood it as indicating the conversion of the people of Damascus. But this idea is contrary to the context. Rather is it to be understood of the lighting down of God s wrath, which shall there rest until it has accomplished His purpose of judgment. Dr. Wright suggests as a parallel Jer. xlix. 38, when, in allusion to His judgment impending over Elam, God says, " I will set My throne in Elam."
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