REHOBOTH (re-hb'both), (Heb. rekh-o both', broad land).
1. The "city Rehoboth." one of the four found ed by Asher or Nimrod (Gen. x :1 t. 12) The text has been variously explained. Some regard it as denoting, not a separate city, but the "streets of the city"— that is, of Nineveh ; others prefer to regard it as a distinct city. Rawlinson would identify it with Selemiyoh, near Kalah, which has extensive ruins.
2. "Rehoboth by the river," mentioned as the home of Saul or Shaul. an early king of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi :37; r Chron. i :48). The "river" is supposed to be the Euphrates. The name is represented by Rahaboh, attached to two places on the Euphrates, one twenty-eight miles below the junction of the Khabour and three miles from the western bank ; the other lower down, on the eastern side. The former is per haps the true site of the ancient Rehoboth.
3. A well belonging to Isaac, and the third dug by him (Gen. xxvi :22). It is thought by some to be located about eighteen miles south of Beer sheba, at the head of the great Wady Refah, and to be identical with what is now known as er Ruhaipeli; yet because of its distance from Gerar, where the first well of Isaac was digged, it seems unsafe, without further proof, to regard its iden tification with Rehoboth as complete.
Near some stone ruins is an ancient well ; the troughs and other masonry which still remain are of immense proportions, and apparently of very great antiquity. One of the troughs is round and the other circular, and cut in solid blocks six feet by five feet, and five feet high. Palmer states that the appearance of the masonry, which is more massive and antique than any other in the neigh borhood. renders it probable that it is the well which Isaac dug. Though Robinson could not find it, Stewart and Rowlands each found it, as an ancient well and twelve feet in circumference ; but it was so built over and filled with rubbish that neither Palmer nor Drake could at first dis cover it. (Schaff, Bib. Diet.)