Hazar-addar
Hazar-addar is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Negev in modern-day Israel. Known today as Ein Qedeis. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Hazar-addar appears in the Old Testament solely in the description of the southern boundary of the land of Canaan as assigned to the Israelites by the Lord through Moses. In Numbers 34:4, the southern border of the promised land is traced from the Wilderness of Zin past Kadesh-barnea, then past Hazar-addar to Azmon, before turning westward toward the Wadi of Egypt. This boundary description was of constitutional importance for ancient Israel, defining the extent of the territory promised to them by divine covenant. Hazar-addar may be a compound place name meaning "enclosure of Addar" or "court of Addar," combining the common Semitic root hazar (enclosure or village) with a proper name. The parallel passage in Joshua 15:3, which describes the same southern boundary for the tribe of Judah, reads the name slightly differently as "Hezron" and "Addar", two separate waypoints, suggesting that Hazar-addar was alternatively understood as a compound of two earlier place names fused into one. This southern boundary zone, lying in the arid Negev highlands between Kadesh-barnea and the Wadi of Egypt, defined the southernmost limit of Israel's covenantal inheritance and marked the transition between the wilderness of wandering and the land of promise.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Hazar-addar is tentatively identified with the area around Ein Qedeis in the northwestern Negev highlands, in the vicinity of Kadesh-barnea. The region has been surveyed as part of broader investigations into the Negev during the late Bronze and Iron Ages. The Kadesh-barnea area itself has received more sustained archaeological attention, with Iron Age fortress sites at Tel el-Qudeirat. The surrounding terrain is characterized by shallow wadis, limestone formations, and seasonal water sources that would have made way-station settlements practical for travelers crossing the Negev. The scarcity of water in this region makes any ancient settlement with a reliable spring strategically significant, consistent with the prominence of such sites in boundary descriptions.
Verse Appearances (1)
Num
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]