Beer
Beer is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Galilee in modern-day Israel. Known today as El Bira. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
This Beer, identified with a city in the region of Galilee, appears in Judges 9:21 in the context of Jotham's dramatic escape. After delivering his famous parable of the trees seeking a king from Mount Gerizim, Jotham fled from his brother Abimelech, who had murdered seventy of Gideon's sons to seize power in Shechem. The text states simply that 'Jotham ran away and fled. He went to Beer, and stayed there because he was afraid of his brother Abimelech.' Beer thus served as a place of refuge for Jotham, distant enough from Shechem that Abimelech could not easily reach him. The episode highlights the fragility of the early Israelite tribal confederation and the violence of Abimelech's usurpation, which Jotham's parable compared to the thornbush, the most worthless of plants, claiming kingship over the noble trees. Beer appears in no other significant biblical context but holds importance as the destination that allowed Jotham, the lone survivor of Gideon's household, to escape and deliver his prophetic words before disappearing from the narrative.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Beer of Judges 9:21, associated with Jotham's flight from Shechem, is tentatively identified with the site of El Bira in the lower Galilee region of northern Israel, situated in the Jezreel Valley area. The site's location at a meaningful distance from Shechem would be consistent with its function as a place of refuge beyond Abimelech's practical reach. Archaeological surveys of the Galilee region have documented continuous settlement from the Bronze Age through the Byzantine period. However, no dedicated excavation of biblical Beer in this context has been reported. The general area shows evidence of Iron Age I occupation consistent with the period of the judges, and the lower Galilee was clearly populated during this era, as confirmed by sites such as Megiddo and Tel Yokneam.
Verse Appearances (1)
Judg
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]