Bered
Bered is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Sinai in modern-day Egypt. Known today as Haluza. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Bered appears in Genesis 16:14 as a geographical reference point used to locate the well Beer-lahai-roi, the site of Hagar's divine encounter in the wilderness. The text states that the well lay "between Kadesh and Bered," situating it in the Negev wilderness south of Canaan. This single reference is Bered's only explicit appearance in the canonical Hebrew Bible, giving it significance primarily as a topographical marker within the dramatic narrative of Hagar's flight and the angel of the LORD's intervention. The name may preserve an ancient Semitic place name of uncertain etymology. Some scholars identify Bered with the region near Shur and the road to Egypt, consistent with Hagar's Egyptian origin and her flight toward her homeland. The location of Beer-lahai-roi between Kadesh (often identified with Ain Qadeis or Ain Qudeirat) and Bered places the latter somewhere in the central Sinai or western Negev corridor. The theological weight of the passage rests on the divine encounter rather than the geography, yet Bered's mention anchors the story in a real landscape traversed by ancient travelers.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Bered is tentatively associated with Haluza (ancient Elusa), located in the western Negev of modern Israel. Haluza itself is a significant site with occupation from the Nabataean through Byzantine periods, serving as a major commercial and administrative center along the incense route. However, the equation of Bered with Haluza is uncertain, as the site's documented history begins in the Hellenistic-Nabataean era rather than the Bronze Age. Other proposals place Bered in the Sinai region. The sparse Bronze Age material from the Negev makes definitive identification difficult, and Bered's precise location remains one of the unresolved questions of biblical geography.
Verse Appearances (1)
Gen
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]