ARAM la'rami, ( I I eh. ar tuom', probably I rum ram, 1. This was the name given by the I lebrews to the tract of country lying between on the west, Palestine on the south, Arabia Desert.' and the River Tigris on the east, and the mountain range of Taurus on the north. The inhabi tants were called Aramit es. Many part; of this extensive territory have a much lower level than Palestine, but it might receive the designa tion of 'highlands,' because it does rise to a greater elevation than that country at most points of intermediate contact, and especially on the side of Lebanon. Aram. or Aram:ra, seems to has e corresponded wit( rally to the 11'9 Mesopotamia of the Greeks and Romans. We find the following divisions expressly noriced in Scripture : (1) Aram-Dammesek, the Syria of Damascus, conquered by David (2 Sam. viii :5. 6), where it denotes only the territory around Damascus ; but elsewhere 'Aram' in connection with its capi tal Damascus, appears to be used in a wider sense for Syria Proper ( Is. vii 8 ; xvii :3 ; Amos i :5). At a later period Damascus gave name to a dis trict, the Syria Damascena of Pliny (v :13).
(2) Aram-Maachah (1 Chron. xix:61, or sim ply .11aachah (2 Sam. x :6, 8), which, if formed from the Hebrew, to press tagether, would de scribe a country inclosed and hemmed in by mountains, in contradistinction to the next di vision, Aram-beth-Rechob, Syria. the wide or broad; being used in Syriac for a district of country. Aram-Maachah was not far from the northern border of the Israelites on the east of the Jordan (Comp. Dent. iii :14 with Josh. xiii I, 13). In 2 Sam. x :6, the text has king Maachoh, hut it is to be corrected from the parallel passage in t Chron. xix :7, king of Maachah.
(3) Aram-beth-Reehob, the meaning of which may be that given above, but the precise locality cannot with certainty lie determined. Some con nect it with the Beth-rehob of Judg. xviii.
(4) Aram-Zobah, or, in the Syriac form, %UAL (2 Sam. x :6). Jewish tradition has placed Zobah at Aleppo (see the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela), whereas Syrian tradition identifies it with Nisibis. We may gather from 2 Sam.
viii :3 ; x :16. that the eastern boundary of Aram 7.ohah was the Euphrates, but Nisibis was far beyond that river; besides that in the title of the sixtieth Psalm (supposing it genuine) Aram Zobah is clearly distinguished from Aram-Naha raim or Mesopotamia. It is true, indeed, that in 2 Sam. x:16, it is said that Hadarczer, king of Zobah, brought against David ':\ramites from beyond the river hut these were auxiliaries. and not his own subjects. The people of Zobah are uniformly spoken of as near neighbors of the Israelites, the Damascenes, and other Syrians ; and in one place (2 Chron. viii :3) Hamath is called Hamath-Zobah, as pertaining to that dis trict. \\'e, therefore, conclude that Aram-Zobah extended from the Euphrates westward, perhaps as far north as to Aleppo. It was long the most powerful of the petty kingdoms of Aramea. its princes commonly bearing the name of f ladaciezer or I ladare7er.
(5 ) Aram-Naharnim, ,/ ram of the TWO h'iv'erc, called in Syriac •Beth-Nahrin,' the land of the rt•erc, fislhesving the :malt sgv by which the Greeks formed the name Mr000rorateta, the country between the rivers. The rivers %%hid' mia are the Euphrates on the west and the Tigris on the east; but it is doubtful whether the Aram Naharaim of ht riptur• embraces the %%hole of that tract or only the inirthern irtion of it (Cinn)).
Gen. x xis" io; Dent. xxiii Judg. A part of this region of Aram is also called Padan-.1ram, the fain of .farm (Gen. xxv:zo: xxviii 2, 6, 7; xxxi•t8; xxxiii:18), and on( e simply /'afar/ i(;en, xlviii:7). also .',,/eh-.lram, the lido' of .1 ram II los. xii whence the 'Campi Mesopotamix' of Quintus Curtius 2, 3; iii 8, I; iv q, 61, itIlt the whole of Aram-Naharaim did not belong to the flat country of Nlesopotainia appears from the circumstance that Ilalaam, who (Deut. xxiii 1) is called a native of Aram-Naharaim, says (Num. xxiii 7) that lie %%a; brought 'from Aram, out of the of the Th. Septuagint, in ,out of Ile places, has lle tart t f Se.