The capital city of Syria (Isaiah 7:8) situated east of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and overshadowed in the southwest by Mt. Hermon . The district is famous for its orchards and gardens, being irrigated by the clear Abana (modern Barada) and adjacent Pharpar rivers, which compared favorably with the slower, muddy Jordan (2 Kings 5:12) and Euphrates rivers (Isaiah 8:5-8). It is a natural communications center, linking the caravan route to the Mediterranean coast (about 100 kilometers to the west) through Tyre (Ezekiel 27:18) to Egypt with the tracks east across the desert to Assyria and Babylonia, south to Arabia, and north to Aleppo. The city was of special importance as head of an Aramaean (Syrian) state in the 10th-8th centuries B.C.
Under king Rezin, Syria oppressed Judah (2 Kings 16:6), but was a vassal of Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria. Soon thereafter, Rezin revolted, captured Elath and took many Judaeans captive to Damascus (2 Chronicles 28:5). Ahaz of Judah thereupon appealed for help to Assyria who responded by launching a series of punitive raids in 734-732 B.C., which culminated in the capture of Damascus, as prophesied by Isaiah (17:1) and Amos (1:4-5), and the death of Rezin. The spoiling of the city (Isaiah 8:4), the deportation of its inhabitants to Kir (Qir) (2 Kings 16:9), and its destruction were cited as an object lesson to Judah (Isaiah 10:9).
In return for this assistance Ahaz was summoned to pay tribute to the Assyrian king at Damascus, where he saw and copied the altar (2 Kings 16:10-12) which led to the worship of Syrian deities within the Temple at Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 28:23). Damascus was reduced to a subsidiary city within the Assyrian province of Hamath and henceforth lost its political, but not completely its economic, influence (cf. Ezekiel 27:18). Judaean merchants continued to reside in the city, and the border of Damascus was considered the boundary of the ideal Jewish state (Ezekiel 47:16-18, 48:1). [Tyndale House, The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Vol. 1, pp. 355-357] [See 2 Nephi 20:9]
2 Nephi 17:8 For the head of Syria is Damascus . . . and the head of Ephraim is Samaria ([Illustration]): The kingdoms of Israel and Syria attack Judah. Artist: Tom Child. [Thomas R. Valletta ed., The Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families, 1999, p. 112]
2 Nephi 17:8 Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people ([Illustration]): Map: Campaigns of Salmaneser V. and Sargon II (Isaiah 20). Adapted from Macmillan Bible Atlas, 149. Assyria, the enemy of Israel, had embarked on a ruthless campaign to expand its borders. Isaiah's specific prophecy that in "threescore and five years" Ephraim, or the northern kingdom of Israel, would no longer be a kingdom or a nation was fulfilled. Ephraim fell in 721 B.C., midway through Isaiah's ministry. King Sargon II of Assyria deported most of Ephraim's citizens, some of the ten tribes of Israel, to the north countries (see 2 Kings 17:5-6). Photograph by Biblical Archaeological Review Mesop 4-085 Erich Lessing/Art Resource, N.Y. [Donald W. Parry, Visualizing Isaiah, p. 10]