Telaim (Hastings' Dictionary)

The place at which S.aul concentrated liis forces, and numbered his fighting men before his camiiaign against the Amalekites (1 S 15*). The LXX reads Gilgal for Telaim, and Josephus (Ant. VI. vii. 2) also makes GUgal the place of assembly. Gilgal, however, though so frequently mentioned in connexion with the history of Saul, would be an inconvenient mustering-place for a force about to oiperate against the Amalekites in the desert S. of Palestine.

Still it is possible that Saul may have started from the sanctuary to which he returned with his prisoner and booty. A more suitable locality for the place of assembly would, however, be in the Negeb, or Soutli ; and here lay Telem (Jos IS-'), with which Telaim is prob.ably identical. So Wellhausen, Driver, and liudde, who prefer to point o.-tj'o. Wellhausen reads o^o also in 1 S 15' for ■ij'"!!!. The same read- in" should also probably be found in 1 S 27* (see Wellh. and Driver, ad lo'c.

, and Hommel, A HT 243). C. W. Wilson. TELASSAR (hsn'?!? 2 K 19", -iz^i} Is 37" ' hill of Asshur ' ; B Qa^aBiv, A tiaXturcrip ; Thelassar, Tha- lassar). — A town, inhabited by 'the children of Eden ' (see Eden), which had been conquered by Sennacherib's forefathers, and was in the possession of the Assyrians during that monarch's reign (2 K lO", Is 37'-). It is iniiMlioned with Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph — places in Western Mesopotamia. In this direction lay Beth-Eden, or Bit-'Adini (see art.

Edkn, vol. i. p. 642''), a district between the Euphrates and the Belik. It probably stretched along both banks of the I'^uphrates, between Balis and Birejik. In the inscrii)ti()ns, Gozan, Haran, Kezeph, and BSt-'Adini are stated to have been de- stroyed by Sennacherib's forefathers — a fact which harmonizes well with what is said in 2 Kings and Isaiah (Schrader, KAT^ 327). A olace of this name (Til-ASiuri) is mentioned by 1 iglath-pileser III. (Ann. 176, ed. Rost, of. Nimr. ii.

a 23) ; but this .seems to have wen in Babylonia. The name is, however, as Schrader remarks, one that might have been given to any place at which a temple had been built to Asshur ; and the Til-ASiuri. which Esarhaddon speaks of having conquered (KIB ii. 219), near tlie land of the Mitanni, as Del. (Parad. 304) remarks, suits better. C. W. Wilson.