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HophraAid to Bible Understanding
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rulership. Whether this was Hophra or whether he had been killed beforehand and another king ruled in his place, as Herodotus relates, is uncertain.
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HorAid to Bible Understanding
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HOR
[mountain; hence Mount Hor literally means “mount of the mountain,” that is, an outstanding mountain, “the mountain”].
1. The mountain near Moserah on the border of Edom where Aaron died shortly before Israel’s entry into the Promised Land. With the assembly of Israel watching, Aaron, Moses and Aaron’s son Eleazar ascended Mount Hor. On the mountaintop Moses removed Aaron’s priestly garments and clothed Eleazar with them. After this, Aaron died, and Moses and Eleazar probably buried him there.—Num. 20:22-29; Deut. 32:50; compare Deuteronomy 10:6.
According to the historian Josephus, Mount Hor was one of the high mountains encompassing the Edomite city of Petra. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book IV, chap. IV, par. 7) Tradition has linked it with Jebel Harun (“Mountain of Aaron”), a twin-topped, red sandstone mountain having an elevation of some 4,800 feet (1,463 meters) and situated less than three miles (5 kilometers) W-SW of Petra. However, Jebel Harun does not seem to fit the Biblical description of Israel’s coming from Kadesh (Kadesh-barnea) to Mount Hor “on the frontier of the land of Edom.” (Num. 33:37-39, 41) Jebel Harun is not on Edom’s border, but within that country. Thus for Israel to have reached this traditional site would have meant trespassing on Edom’s territory. But this could not have occurred, since the Israelites had previously been denied passage through Edom. (Num. 20:14-22; Deut. 2:5-8) Hence, many scholars favor as a possible identification isolated, steep-sided white chalk Jebel Madurah, a mountain about twenty-six miles (c. 42 kilometers) SW of the Dead Sea.
2. A mountain marking the northern extremity of Canaan. (Num. 34:7, 8) No certain identification can be made. Some scholars believe that this Mount Hor (Heb., hor ha-harʹ) may be the same as Mount Hermon. Others suggest that hor ha-harʹ perhaps designates the entire Lebanon range or a prominent peak thereof.
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HoramAid to Bible Understanding
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HORAM
(Hoʹram) [elevated].
King of Gezer; one of the thirty-one kings defeated by the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua during the conquest of the Promised Land. Horam and all his host were killed when they came to the aid of Lachish at the time of Joshua’s campaign against that city.—Josh. 10:33; 12:7, 8, 12, 24.
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HorebAid to Bible Understanding
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HOREB
(Hoʹreb) [drought, desert).
“The mountain of the true God,” apparently the same as Mount Sinai. (1 Ki. 19:8; Ex. 33:6) Generally, though, Horeb seems to designate the mountainous region around Mount Sinai, otherwise called the Wilderness of Sinai. (Deut. 1:6, 19; 4:10, 15; 5:2; 9:8; 18:16; 29:1; 1 Ki. 8:9; 2 Chron. 5:10; Ps. 106:19; Mal. 4:4; compare Exodus 3:1, 2; Acts 7:30.) At Horeb, Jehovah’s angel appeared to Moses in the midst of the burning thornbush, commissioning him to lead Israel out of Egypt. (Ex. 3:1-15) Later, while at Rephidim, the liberated Israelites complained about having no water to drink. Thereupon, at Jehovah’s direction, Moses, accompanied by some of the older men of Israel, went to a rock in Horeb, evidently the mountainous region of Horeb, and struck the rock with his rod. Water miraculously began issuing forth from this rock. (Ex. 17:1-6; compare Psalm 105:41.) Centuries afterward, the prophet Elijah fled from vengeful Queen Jezebel to Horeb by way of Beer-sheba.—1 Ki. 19:2-8; see SINAI.
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HoremAid to Bible Understanding
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HOREM
(Hoʹrem) [sacred].
A fortified city of Naphtali. (Josh. 19:35, 38, 39) Its location is unknown today.
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HoreshAid to Bible Understanding
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HORESH
(Hoʹresh) [wooded place].
A site in the wilderness of Ziph where David hid from Saul. Here also Jonathan acknowledged David as the next king of Israel and the two men “concluded a covenant” of mutual support. (1 Sam. 23:15-19) Horesh is usually identified with modern-day Khirbet Khoreisa, about five and a half miles (8.8 kilometers) S-SE of Hebron.
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Hor-haggidgadAid to Bible Understanding
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HOR-HAGGIDGAD
(Hor-hag·gidʹgad).
An Israelite wilderness camping site. As discussed under the heading BENE-JAAKAN, a comparison of Numbers 33:31-33 with Deuteronomy 10:6, 7 seems to indicate that the Israelites passed through this same region twice, Hor-haggidgad being called “Gudgodah” on the later trip. (See GUDGODAH.) The exact location cannot be determined with certainty. Most scholars, however, tentatively identify Hor-haggidgad (Gudgodah) with a site on the Wadi Ghadaghed, about forty-two miles (68 kilometers) N-NW of the Gulf of Aqabah.
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HoriAid to Bible Understanding
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HORI
(Hoʹri) [possibly, cave dweller].
1. A descendant of Seir the Horite through Lotan.—Gen. 36:20-22; 1 Chron. 1:39.
2. A Simeonite whose son Shaphat was one of the twelve spies sent out by Moses from the Wilderness of Paran.—Num. 13:2, 3, 5.
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HoriteAid to Bible Understanding
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HORITE
(Hoʹrite).
A people inhabiting the mountains of Seir in patriarchal times. They are called in the Bible “the sons of Seir the Horite.” (Gen. 36:20, 21, 29, 30) The Edomites “proceeded to dispossess them and to annihilate them from before them and to dwell in their place.”—Deut. 2:12, 22.
At Genesis 36:2, in the Masoretic text, the grandfather of one of Esau’s wives is called “Zibeon the Hivite.” At verses 20 and 24, however, he is shown to be a descendant of Seir the Horite. There are two ways of resolving this apparent discrepancy. One is, that Horite may mean merely “cave dweller,” from Hebrew hohr, “cave” or “hole.” This would make Zibeon a Hivite. Or, the copyist could have confused the Hebrew letters rehsh (====) and waw (====), which are very similar in appearance. This would explain why “Hivite” appears instead of “Horite” at Genesis 36:2. The latter explanation seems more likely, in that the Horites, living in Seir originally, seem to be distinct from the Hivites, whom the Bible locates mainly in the Lebanon Mountains, with one group, the Gibeonites, holding cities near Jerusalem.—2 Sam. 24:7; Josh. 9:17.
At Joshua 9:7 the Septuagint Version calls the Gibeonites “Chorrean” (Horites) instead of “Hivites,” but this seems to be an error, in view of the fact that the Gibeonites were considered as belonging to one of the seven Canaanite nations devoted to destruction (the Horites were not). The Masoretic text has “Hivites.”—Josh. 9:22-27; Deut. 7:1, 2.
HURRIANS
Many modern scholars now believe that the Horites are actually a people whom they call “Hurrians.” This conclusion is based primarily on linguistic similarities, particularly similarities in proper names, in ancient tablets discovered in recent times over a wide area reaching from modern Turkey into Syria and Palestine. So they hold that the “Hurrians” came to be called Horites. But note E. A. Speiser’s comments in The World History of the Jewish People. He first advances this argument:
“Moreover, the Biblical Jebusites, too, proved to be Hurrians in disguise. They were of foreign stock (Jud. 19:12), a description borne out by the Jebusite personal name Awarnah (II Sam. 24:16, Kethib). A 14th century ruler of Jerusalem, or Jebus, bore a name containing the attested Hurrian element Hepa. Thus Jebusites and Hivites alike—two of the featured pre-Israelite nations—were merely subdivisions of the wide-spread Hurrian group. . . .” But then he adds:
“The above conclusion, however, must now be modified in one significant respect. The required change detracts nothing from the position of the local Hurrians in early Biblical times; but It does affect the
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