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Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia {mes-op-ot-am-ee'-ah}
Greek: personal noun location

Possible Definitions:
1) Mesopotamia meaning "between two rivers", is the entire country between the two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. This is a tract nearly 700 miles long and between 250 and 20 miles wide, extending in the south east direction from Telek and Kurnah. The Arabian geographers term it "the Island", a name which is most literally correct, since a few miles only intervene between the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates at Telek. But the region which bears the name of Mesopotamia, par excellence, both in the Scriptures and in classical writers, is the northwestern portion of this tract, or country, between the great bend in the Euphrates, lat. 35 degrees to 37 degrees 30 minutes, and the upper Tigris. We first hear of Mesopotamia in the Scripture as the country where Nahor and his family settled after quitting Ur of the Chaldees. Gen 24:10. Here lived Bethuel and Laban; and hither Abraham sent his servants to fetch a wife for Isaac. Gen. 24:38. Hither too, a century later, came Jacob on the same errand; and hence he returned with two wives after an absence of twenty-one years. After this we have no mention of Mesopotamia till the close of the wanderings in the wilderness. Dt. 23:4. After half a century later we find, for the first and last time, Mesopotamia the seat of a powerful monarchy. Jud. 3. Finally, the children of Ammon, having provoked a war with David, "sent a thousand talents of silver to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, and out of Syria-maachah, and out of Zobah". 1 Chr. 19:6. According to the Assyrian inscriptions Mesopotamia was inhabited in the early times of the empire, B.C. 1200-1100, by a vast number of petty tribes, each under its own prince, and all quite independent of one another. The Assyrian monarchs contended with these chiefs at great advantage, and by the time of Jehu, B.C. 880, had fully established their dominion over them. On the destruction of the Assyrian empire, Mesopotamia seems to have been divided between the Medes and the Babylonians. The conquests of Cyrus brought it wholly under the Persian yoke; and thus it continued to the time of Alexander. Since 1516 it has formed part of the Turkish empire (1884 times). It is full of ruins and mounds of ancient cities, some of which are now throwing much light on the Scripture.

Mesopotamia {mes-op-ot-am-ee'-ah}

Greek: personal noun location

from 3319 and 4215;

Translated as:

Mesopotamia (2 times)

Strong's Number 3318

TDNT - omitted,omitted