A town on the western bank of the Euphrates, the limit of Solomon's empire in that direction (1 Kings 4:24). Hebrew Tiphsach. Menahem king of Israel smote it and all its coasts (2 Kings 15:16). Thapsacus, in northern Syria, where the Euphrates was usually crossed (Strabo xvi. 1, section 21). From pacach , "to pass over," i.e. the ford. Solomon's aim (1 Kings 4:24) was to have a line of trade with central Asia across the continent. Tadmor was the halting place on the way to Tiphsah.
It was "great and prosperous" (Xenophon, Ahab. 1:4, section 11) as the emporium between E. and W., owing to its ford and its bridge of boats (Strabo xvi. 1, section 23; 3, section 4). Here goods were embarked for transport down the river, and disembarked for land transport from boats which came up it (Q. Curt. x. 1). Suriyeh now marks the ford, four stadia or 800 yards across, as Xenophon accurately states, and at times having but. 20 inches of water. The ten thousand here first learned Cyrus the younger's real intentions (Xenophon, Ahab. i. 4, section 11). A paved causeway on either side of the river and a parallelogram line of mounds still mark the site.