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Prophecy

Damascus “will no longer be a city” (Isaiah 17, Amos 1)

Relief from the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III at Nimrud: assault on an enemy city. It shows the campaigns of the king who took Damascus in 732, not Damascus itself.
Archaeological object Relief from the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III at Nimrud: assault on an enemy city. It shows the campaigns of the king who took Damascus in 732, not Damascus itself. — Mary Harrsch, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

◐ Written shortly before or at the time: it cannot be decided

Written 735–732 BC according to tradition; 735–732 BC according to historians. Event: 732 BC.

See the full entry: sources, objections, answers

In short

The announcement. The prophets Isaiah and Amos, in the 8th century BC (around 735–732 for Isaiah), announce that Damascus “will no longer be a city” and that the Aramean kingdom of which it is the capital will come to an end.

What happened. In 732 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III takes Damascus after a siege, kills its king and replaces him with a governor: the kingdom disappears. But the city itself has remained inhabited without interruption to this day.

What is still debated. the sentence “Damascus will no longer be a city” did not come true literally, which today fuels speculative readings announcing a future destruction.

What would be striking if the text came first

The confirmation comes from the Assyrian archives, and the kingdom disappears for good: its king killed, replaced by a governor. But the announcement dates from the crisis itself, the outcome could be guessed, and the city of Damascus has remained inhabited to this day.

Main objection (in French for now)

Damas n’a jamais cessé d’être une ville : l’UNESCO la compte parmi les plus anciennes villes habitées sans interruption. La lettre d’Es 17:1 (« Damas ne sera plus une ville ») est démentie.

The text (World English Bible)

The burden of Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid. The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says the LORD of Armies.

Isa 17:1-3

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says the LORD.

Amos 1:3-5

Sources