In 1 Kings 9:18, where the word occurs in the King James Version, the Hebrew text and the Revised King James Version read “Tamar,” which is properly a city on the southern border of Israel and toward the wilderness (compare Ezek. 47:19; 48:28).
In 2 Chronicles 8:14 Tadmor is mentioned in connection with Hamath-zobah. It is called Palmyra by the Greeks and Romans. It stood in the great Syrian wilderness, 176 miles from Damascus and 130 from the Mediterranean and was the center of a vast commercial traffic with Western Asia.
It was also an important military station. (See Solomon.)
“Remains of ancient temples and palaces, surrounded by splendid colonnades of white marble, many of which are yet standing, and thousands of prostrate pillars, scattered over a large extent of space, attest the ancient magnificence of this city of palms, surpassing that of the renowned cities of Greece and Rome.”