ARPAD

(Arʹpad).

A royal city of N Syria always associated in the Bible with the city of Hamath. Arpad has been identified with Tell Erfad about twenty-five miles (40 kilometers) NW of Aleppo. Situated on the road leading S to Hamath and Damascus, it came under frequent attack from the Assyrians and was eventually conquered by Tiglath-pileser III and later by Sargon. Thus Sargon’s son, Sennacherib, when threatening Jerusalem in 732 B.C.E., had his spokesman Rabshakeh refer to the fate of Arpad as an evidence of the inability of the gods of the nations to resist Assyria’s mighty power. (2 Ki. 18:34; 19:12, 13) The prophet Isaiah had earlier foretold such boasting. (Isa. 10:9; 36:19; 37:13) Later Jeremiah prophesied that Hamath and Arpad would become ashamed and disintegrate before the “bad report,” evidently concerning the conquests of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.—Jer. 49:23.