Bible Encyclopedias
Coele-Syria

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

sē -lē̇ -sir´i -a (the King James Version Celosyria; Κοίλη Συρία , Koı́lē Surı́a , "hollow Syria"): So the Greeks after the time of Alexander the Great named the valley lying between the two mountain ranges, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. It is referred to in the Old Testament as נ , Biḳ‛ath ha -Lebhānōn , "the valley of Lebanon" (Joshua 11:17 ), a name the echo of which is still heard in el -Buḳā‛ , the designation applied today to the southern part of the valley. This hollow, which extends about 100 miles in length, is the continuation northward of the Jordan valley. The main physical features are described under LEBANON (which see). The name, however, did not always indicate the same tract of territory. In Strabo (xvi.2) and Ptolemy (v.15), it covers the fertile land between Jebel esh -Sharḳy and the desert presided over by Damascus. In 1 Esdras 2:17; 2 Macc 3:8, etc., it indicates the country South and East of Mt. Lebanon, and along with Phoenicia it contributed the whole of the Seleucid dominions which lay South of the river Eleutherus. Josephus includes in Coele-Syria the country east of the Jordan, along with Scythopolis (Beisan) which lay on the West, separated by the river from the other members of the Decapolis (Ant. , XIII , xiii, 2, etc.). In XIV , iv, 5, he says that "Pompey committed Coele-Syria as far as the river Euphrates and Egypt to Scaurus." The term is therefore one of some elasticity.