Bible Encyclopedias
Rehoboth

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

rḗ - hō´both , rḗ - hō´bōth ( רחבות , rehōbhōth , "broad places"; Εὐρυχωρία , Euruchōrı́a ): One of the wells dug by Isaac ( Genesis 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 Ruḥaibeh , 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.

Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Rehoboth'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​isb/​r/rehoboth.html. 1915.