Bible dictionaries

Rehoboth

What Bible dictionaries say about “Rehoboth”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Rehoboth - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Broad places. (1.) A well in Gerar dug by Isaac (Gen. 26:22), supposed to be in Wady er-Ruheibeh, about 20 miles south of Beersheba.

(2.) An ancient city on the Euphrates (Gen. 36:37; 1 Chr. 1:48), "Rehoboth by the river."

(3.) Named among the cities of Asshur (Gen. 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.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

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

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

(wide places , i.e. streets).
  1. The third of the series of wells dug by Isaac, (Genesis 26:22) in the Philistines’ territory, lately identified as er-Ruheibeh , 16 miles south of Beersheba.
  2. One of the four cities built by Asshur, or by Nimrod in Asshur, according as this difficult passage is translated. (Genesis 10:11) Nothing certain is known of its position.
  3. The city of a certain Saul or Shaul, one of the early kings of the Edomites. (Genesis 36:37; 1 Chronicles 1:48) The affix "by the river" fixes the situation of Rehoboth as on the Euphrates.

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith