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Baal-Hazor

BAAL-HAZOR (Heb. בַּעַל חָצוֹר), biblical locality "which is beside Ephraim" (II Sam. 13:23; a Greek version reads Tophraim, i.e., Ophrah?) where *Absalom had *Amnon killed to avenge his sister Tamar at the feast of sheepshearing. It may be identical with the *Hazor mentioned in the territory of Benjamin in the post-Exilic period (Neh. 11:33). The identification of Baal-Hazor with the highest point in the central range of Mount Ephraim, Jebel al-ʿAṣūr, a mountain 3,293 ft. (1,003 m.) high, north of Beth-El and near Ophrah (al-Ṭayba), has been strengthened by the mention of Ramath-Hazor as a high observation point in the Genesis Apocryphon found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Baal-Hazor is possibly the "mountain of Azor," a proposed emendation of Azotus, which is found in I Maccabees 9:15 in the account of the battle of Eleasa, but the version is doubtful.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

EM, S.V.; N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, Genesis Apocryphon (1956), 28; Alt, in: PJB, 24 (1928), 12ff.; 25 (1929), 11ff.; Abel, in: RB, 23, p. 386–7.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]

Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.