Places of the Bible

Hamath

City

[Hama. Waterwheel on Orontes River] 1898 · American Colony Photo Department / Matson Photo Service · Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication

Where the name appears

Events told in passages that name Hamath, and how many of their verses do. That is not the same as saying they happened here: a place can be named as a landmark, as somewhere being travelled to, or as the subject of a prophecy.

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length. The fainter the mark, the fewer verses name the place.

Reign of David · 1054 BC · 1 verse
Reign of Jeroboam II · 824 BC · 1 verse
Prophecies of Amos · 787 BC · 1 verse
Prophecies of Isaiah · 758 BC · 4 verses
Reign of Hezekiah · 725 BC · 2 verses
Prophecies of Jeremiah · 627 BC · 4 verses
Reign of Jehoahaz (Shallum) · 608 BC · 1 verse
Prophecies of Ezekiel · 592 BC · 3 verses
Prophecies of Zechariah · 519 BC · 1 verse

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Fortress, the capital of one of the kingdoms of Upper Syria of the same name, on the Orontes, in the valley of Lebanon, at the northern boundary of Palestine (Num. 13:21; 34:8), at the foot of Hermon (Josh. 13:5) towards Damascus (Zech. 9:2; Jer. 49:23). It is called “Hamath the great” in Amos 6:2, and “Hamath-zobah” in 2 Chr. 8:3.

Hamath, now Hamah, had an Aramaean population, but Hittite monuments discovered there show that it must have been at one time occupied by the Hittites. It was among the conquests of the Pharaoh Thothmes III. Its king, Tou or Toi, made alliance with David (2 Sam. 8:10), and in B.C. 740 Azariah formed a league with it against Assyria. It was, however, conquered by the Assyrians, and its nineteen districts placed under Assyrian governors. In B.C. 720 it revolted under a certain Yahu-bihdi, whose name, compounded with that of the God of Israel (Yahu), perhaps shows that he was of Jewish origin. But the revolt was suppressed, and the people of Hamath were transported to Samaria (2 Kings 17:24, 30), where they continued to worship their god Ashima. Hamah is beautifully situated on the Orontes, 32 miles north of Emesa, and 36 south of the ruins of Assamea.

The kingdom of Hamath comprehended the great plain lying on both banks of the Orontes from the fountain near Riblah to Assamea on the north, and from Lebanon on the west to the desert on the east. The “entrance of Hamath” (Num. 34:8), which was the north boundary of Palestine, led from the west between the north end of Lebanon and the Nusairiyeh mountains.

From M. G. Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1893), in the public domain.

Named in 23 verses

2 Samuel: 8:9
2 Kings: 14:28, 17:24, 17:30, 18:34, 19:13, 23:33, 25:21
1 Chronicles: 18:9
2 Chronicles: 8:4
Isaiah: 10:9, 11:11, 36:19, 37:13
Jeremiah: 39:5, 49:23, 52:9, 52:27
Ezekiel: 47:16, 47:17, 48:1
Amos: 6:2
Zechariah: 9:2

The place, its people and its events come from Theographic, a knowledge graph of the Bible by Robert Rouse, used and shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.