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HEBRON

(Heb. ḥeḇrôn)

(PLACE)

A city 30.6 km. (19 mi.) SSE of Jerusalem and 37 km. (23 mi.) NE of Beer-sheba, 1021 m. (3350 ft.) above sea level on the Judean mountain ridge; also known as Kiriath-arba (“city of four”; Gen. 23:2). With the possible exception of Jerusalem, probably no other site in ancient Palestine enjoys more biblical, intertestamental, and folklore attention than Hebron. Built traditionally “seven years before Zoan in Egypt” (Num. 13:22), Hebron was where Abraham pitched his tent after his separation from Lot and where he “built an altar to the Lord” (Gen. 13:18), entertained “angels” (18:1-15), pleaded for the innocents of Sodom (18:22-33), and bought the cave of Machpelah as a burial place for Sarah (23:1-20), setting the stage for subsequent burials of all the patriarchal family (25:9-10; 35:27-29). During the Exodus, Hebron’s vineyards were appreciated by the spies of Moses.

After the Conquest, Hebron was “given” as an inheritance to Caleb (Josh. 14:13) and became a place of refuge (20:7) and a levitical city (21:11-13). It was in the days of David, however, that the city attained its greatest biblical renown as the capital of Judah (1 Sam. 2:11; 5:5) and, seven and a half years later, as the capital of the United Monarchy until the capture of Jerusalem. Absalom attempted to usurp his father’s throne at Hebron, and Solomon, so Josephus tells us, had his vision there. With the breakup of the United Monarchy, Hebron appeared in the list of Rehoboam’s refortified cities (2 Chr. 11:10) and then drops out of biblical mention.

Local folklore added much to the biblical stories, setting Hebron as the place where Adam and Eve mourned for Abel and as the location of the tombs of Jesse and Ruth, the tomb of Abner, and even the source of the red earth from which Adam was formed!

Extrabiblical evidence suggests that Hebron may have been a Canaanite royal city, and the nearby oak of Mamre, an oracular center. A possible reading in the Amarna Letters may refer to the site as early as the 14th century b.c.e., and the Medinet Habu list of Rameses III also mentions a site that may have been Hebron. Hebron may be the city noted in the conquest list of Shishak of Egypt (“a field of Abram”), against whom Rehoboam had been refortifying southern sites. During the 8th century the city appears to have functioned as a royal pottery center, as the unmistakable jar handle inscriptions found all over Palestine attest.

The first major excavation of the site (160103), with the discovery of the Middle Bronze Age walls (ca. 1728) and their characteristic “Hyksos” battering, was conducted by the American expedition to Hebron in 1965-66. Further excavations were conducted by Israeli archaeologists. Archaeological evidence carries the occupation of the area back to the Chalcolithic period, through the Early Bronze Age, to the time the city was “officially” built in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age.

No record of Hebron appears in either the Assyrian or the Neo-Babylonian conquest lists, but its prominence obviously precluded it from being overlooked by any eastern conqueror. After the fall of Jerusalem, Edomites occupied the city and were not dislodged until Judas Maccabeus took the city from their successors, the Idumeans, in 164. Later, Herod refurbished the city and built an enclosure around the traditional burial place of the patriarchs, as his characteristic masonry there still attests.

The site continued to attract attention during the later Roman period, the Islamic conquest, and the time of the Crusades. “Destroyed” by Vespasian’s general Cerialis, enough remained of the city that Hadrian later built a road to its market. At the bequest of the prophet Mohammed, the city formally entered the Islamic period. During the Crusades, Hebron became a major link in the line of Frankish fortress-cities, which sustained the Latin Kingdom, under the name “Castle of St. Abraham.” With the fall of the western powers, Hebron again reverted to Muslim control and became, finally, one of the major holy places in all of Palestine, even becoming a station on the hegira route to Mecca. The Arabic name given to the city, el-Khalil (“the Friend”), reflects its Abrahamic ties.

Philip C. Hammond

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

HEBRON

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)