ZOAR

(Zoʹar) [smallness].

A city of the “District,” evidently once at the edge of a fertile plain. (Gen. 13:10-12; see DISTRICT OF THE JORDAN.) Apparently Bela was Zoar’s earlier name. In Abraham’s day, it was ruled by a king who rebelled with the four others of the District after twelve years of domination by Chedorlaomer, only to be defeated by the Elamiate monarch and his three allies. (Gen. 14:1-11) When Jehovah was about to destroy Sodom, Lot requested and received permission to flee from there to Zoar, and this city was spared. (Gen. 19:18-25) Fear later caused him and his two daughters to leave Zoar and become cave dwellers in the nearby mountainous region.—Gen. 19:30.

It was foretold that when catastrophe befell Moab, its runaways would flee to Zoar, and that the cry over the nation’s devastation would be heard “from Zoar clear to Horonaim, to Eglath-shelishiyah,” perhaps indicating that Zoar was then a Moabite city. (Isa. 15:5; Jer. 48:34) The Septuagint and certain modern translations (AT, JB, NE [1970 ed.], RS) mention Zoar (Zogora) at Jeremiah 48:4 (31:4, LXX, Bagster), but the Hebrew Masoretic text there refers instead to “her little ones.” (NW, JP, Le, Ro) Zoar marked the extreme S point that Moses saw when viewing the land from Mount Nebo. (Deut. 34:1-3) Apparently the city was in or near Moab, close to the Moabite mountainous region and somewhere SE of the Dead Sea. (Compare Genesis 19:17-22, 30, 37.) Some scholars would place Zoar N of the Dead Sea, others on the el-Lisan Peninsula, or just S or W of the S end of the sea. In the Middle Ages the name was linked with an important site between Jerusalem and Elath. Today, however, many believe that the original Zoar and the other “cities of the District” lie beneath the waters of the S portion of the Dead Sea.—Gen. 13:12.