Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ARARAT

(Heb. ʾărārāṭ)

Biblical name for a country (Assyrian Urartu) in eastern Asia Minor near Lake Van, encompassing parts of Turkey, Armenia, Iran, and Iraq. The territory gained prominence as a major political entity during the 9th century b.c.e. Urartu blocked Assyria’s northern advances, and major campaigns into Urartian territory were undertaken by Assyrian rulers Shalmaneser III (859-824) and Sargon II (722-705). Urartu eventually succumbed to the Medes, who destroyed the region in 585. The territory was later incorporated into the Persian Empire.

Following the murder of their father, the sons of Sennacherib fled to the “land of Ararat” (2 Kgs. 19:37 = Isa. 37:38). In Jeremiah’s oracle against Babylon the kingdom of Ararat is summoned by God, along with neighboring nations (Jer. 51:27).

Gen. 8:4 records that Noah’s ark came to rest upon the “mountains of Ararat.” Early tradition sought to identify a specific peak as the location of Noah’s ark. Josephus quotes the 3rd-century Babylonian priest Berossus that portions of the ark had been discovered in Armenia, at the mountain of the Gordyaeans (Ant. 1.93). The modern identification of Mt. Ararat with Aǵri Daǵ, a mountain in eastern Turkey, rests upon a late postbiblical tradition.

Kenneth Atkinson

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ARARAT

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)