Rehoboth
Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897) · International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
THE DICTIONARY — Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897)
broad places. (1.) A well in Gerar dug by Isaac (Genesis 26:22), supposed to be in Wady er-Ruheibeh, about 20 miles south of Beersheba. (2.) An ancient city on the Euphrates (Genesis 36:37; 1 Chronicles 1:48), “Rehoboth by the river.” (3.) Named among the cities of Asshur (Genesis 10:11). Probably, however, the words “rehoboth’ ir” are to be translated as in the Vulgate and the margin of A.V., “the streets of the city,” or rather “the public square of the city”, i.e., of Nineveh.
THE FULL ARTICLE — from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), general editor James Orr — public domain, printed whole.
re-ho'-both, re-ho'-both (rehobhoth, "broad places"; Euruchoria): One of the wells dug by Isaac (Ge 26:22). It is probably the Rubuta of the Tell el-Amarna Letters (Petrie, numbers 256, 260; see also The Expository Times, XI, 239 (Konig), 377 (Sayce)), and it is almost certainly identical with the ruin Ruchaibeh, 8 hours Southwest of Beersheba. Robinson (BR, I, 196-97) describes the ruins of the ancient city as thickly covering a "level tract of 10 to 12 acres in extent"; "many of the dwellings had each its cistern, cut in the solid rock"; "once this must have been a city of not less than 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." Huntington (Palestine and Its Transformation, 124) describes considerable remains of a suburban population extending both to the North and to the South of this once important place.
E. W. G. Masterman