Bible Dictionaries
Fertile Crescent (2)

Holman Bible Dictionary

Mesopotamia (Greek for “land between rivers”) refers to the land along and between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The westernmost of the two major rivers is the Euphrates, a sluggish 1,750 miles in length and quite usable for navigation and irrigation. Its major tributaries are the Balikh and the Habor. The Tigris in the east Isaiah 1,150 miles long and much swifter than the Euphrates. Its lower course was less stable than the upper region and thus less thickly populated. Its major tributaries, Upper Zab, Lower Zab, and Diyala, all rise in the Zagros Mountains.

Mesopotamia has several distinct geopolitical units. Southern Mesopotamia, where the two river valleys merge, is known as Babylonia. This region has two sub-units, Sumer and Akkad. Sumer in the southeast tip was the home to the early city-states (Ur, Lagash, and Uruk) of the Sumerian civilization. Akkad, to the north of Sumer where the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates first merge, became the home of early empires centered at Agade and Babylon. Northern Mesopotamia, along the northern course of the Tigris is called Assyria after the great Iron Age empire centered there. Major cities of Assyria are Assur, Calah, and Nineveh. The northwest corner of Mesopotamia, along the upper course of the Euphrates and its tributaries was occupied by the Arameans from about 1200 B.C. onwards. The biblical region known as Paddan-Aram (Genesis 25:20 ) or Aram-Naharaim (often incorrectly translated Mesopotamia) refers to the area around the city of Haran on the Balikh.

The regions of the eastern Mediterranean seaboard are collectively known as the Levant. This western “arm” of the Fertile Crescent is about 350 miles in length from the Taurus and Amanus mountains in the north to the edge of the Sinai desert in the south. Typically the settled area is sixty to eighty miles in width. The Levant is composed of the geopolitical units, Syria and Palestine.

Ancient Syria lay between the northern mountains and Palestine, the area occupied by modern Syria and Lebanon. Major rivers in the region are the Orontes and Litani. The Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges run north and south on the west and east sides, respectively, of the BeqaspValley. The cities of the Phoenicians, notably Tyre and Sidon, were on the Syrian coast, while the Aramean states of Hamath and Damascus were located further inland.

Palestine, the land of ancient and modern Israel, is a southern extension of Syria. The western ridge of mountains, called the Hill Country in the Bible, is separated from the highlands of the Transjordan in the east by the Jordan River Valley. Palestine was the smallest and poorest region of the Fertile Crescent. Nevertheless, the area was strategically important for control of the trade routes connecting Arabia and Egypt with the rest of the Fertile Crescent.

Egypt was separated from Palestine by the Sinai, and thus is not a part of the Fertile Crescent. The Nile River, however, provided an ideal situation for the rise of early civilization parallel to that of Mesopotamia.

Daniel C. Browning, Jr.