Rezin
Re'zin (Heb. Retsin', רצַין, firm, perhaps prince), the name of two men.
1. (Sept. ῾Ρασίν, ῾Ραασσών.) A king of Damascus, contemporary with Pekah in Israel, and with Jotham and Ahaz in Judaea. The policy of Rezin seems to have been to ally himself closely with the kingdom of Israel, and, thus strengthened, to carry on constant war against the kings of Judah. He attacked Jotham during the latter part of his reign (2Ki 15:37); but his chief war was with Ahaz, whose territories he invaded, in company with Pekah, soon after Ahaz had mounted the throne (B.C. cir. 740). The combined army laid siege to Jerusalem, where Ahaz was, but "could not prevail against it" (Isa 7:1; 2Ki 16:5). Rezin, however, "recovered Elath to Syria" (ver. 6); that is, he conquered and held possession of the celebrated town of that name at the head of the Gulf of 'Akabah, which commanded one of the most important lines of trade in the East. Soon after this he was attacked by Tiglath-pileser II, king of Assyria, to whom Ahaz in his distress had made application. His armies were defeated by the Assyrian hosts; his city besieged and taken; his people carried away captive into Susiana; and he himself slain (ver. 9; comp. Tiglath-pileser's own inscriptions, where the defeat of Rezin and the destruction of Damascus are distinctly mentioned). This treatment was probably owing to his being regarded as a rebel, since Damascus had been taken and laid under tribute by the Assyrians some time previously (Rawlinson, Herodotus, 1, 467).
2. The head of one of the families of the Nethinim who returned from Babylon (Ezr 2:48; Ne 7:50). B.C. ante 536.
