Iturea
It extended from Mount Lebanon across the plain of Marsyas[dubious – discuss] to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syria, with its centre in Chalcis ad Libanum.
Based on the Septuagint translation of 1Ch 5:19 several commentators, including Gesenius, John Gill and William Muir equated the Itureans with Jetur, one of the former Hagrite encampments, named after a son of Ishmael.
[18] More recent scholars have dismissed such direct relationships between the Biblical Jetur and the Itureans: The account of the Hagrites places Jetur east of Gilead and describes the end of that tribe which was conquered by the Israelites in the days of Saul, whereas Iturea has been confirmed to be north of Galilee and the Itureans first appear in the Hellenistic period with their location only being referred to as Iturea in the Roman period.
Although Jetur is translated Itouraion (Ιτουραιων) in 1Ch 5:19, the rendering of the name is not consistent across the Septuagint with the occurrences in Ge 25:15 and 1Ch 1:31 being transliterated Ietour (Ιετουρ) and Iettour (Ιεττουρ) respectively.
[19] Eupolemus used the term Itureans to refer to people from the Biblical region of Aram-Zobah, not Jetur, when describing the wars of King David.
Smith's Bible Dictionary attempted to equate the modern Arabic region name Jedur (جدور) with both Jetur and Iturea.
[20] Ernest Axel Knauf related Iturea to the Safaitic name Yaẓur (יט׳ור, يظور) which is rendered Yaṭur (יטור) in Nabatean Aramaic.
Yaẓur in Safaitic inscriptions is seemingly a cognate of the Biblical name Jetur (Yeṭur, יטור) and is possibly derived from its original form.
If this is the case then Biblical Jetur would indirectly be the origin of the name Iturea although denoting a different region and people centuries before.
Similarly, in the transliterations Ietour- (Ιετουρ) and Iettour ((Ιεττουρ)) for Jetur in the Septuagint, the iota represents an original y - the Hebrew letter yod (י).
An initial iota may also be used for the syllable yi, however such a reading of Itour- (Ιτουρ-) does not produce a meaningful form and no tradition of pronouncing it as such exists.
However he does not provide a grammatical form that would be vocalized as Itour- and ultimately dismisses this possibility as it involves an unattested sound change of s (ש) into t (ט).
In the Syriac Peshittas which are the texts closest in time to the period in which the tetrarchy of Iturea existed that provide a Semitic form of the name, it is called 'iṭuriya' (ܐܝܛܘܪܝܐ) rendered with an initial alap and yodh (ܐܝ).
[26] In 105 BC, Aristobulus I campaigned against Iturea, and added a great part of it to Judea, annexing the Galilee to the Hasmonean kingdom.
Josephus cites a passage from Timagenes excerpted by Strabo which recounts that Aristobulus was: 'very serviceable to the Jews, for he added a country to them, and obtained a part of the nation of the Itureans for them, and bound to them by the bond of the circumcision of their genitals.
Three years later, at the death of Zenodorus, Augustus gave Iturea to Herod the Great, who in turn bequeathed it to his son Philip (Josephus, Ant.
[30] The area and the Itureans are mentioned only once in the New Testament, in Luke 3, but are frequently described by pagan writers such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Cicero.
A branch of the Itureans were allegedly conquered by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus I (r. 104 to 103 BC) and, according to Josephus, forcibly converted to Judaism.
