Hamath in the context of "Orontes River"

The Land of Israel (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, Modern: Éretz Yisra'él, Tiberian: ʾEreṣ Yīsrāʾēl, land of Jacob, later known as Israel) is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious, and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt" (1 Kings 8:65, 1 Chronicles 13:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:8).

These biblical limits for the land differ from the borders of established historical Israelite and later Jewish kingdoms, including the United Kingdom of Israel, the two kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah, the Hasmonean kingdom, and the Herodian kingdom. At their heights, these realms ruled lands with similar but not identical boundaries.

Shalmaneser III (Šulmānu-ašarēdu, "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC.

His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia, Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu. His armies penetrated to Lake Van and the Taurus Mountains; the Neo-Hittites of Carchemish were compelled to pay tribute, and the kingdoms of Hamath and Aram Damascus were subdued. It is in the annals of Shalmaneser III from the 850s BC that the Arabs and Chaldeans first appear in recorded history.