Hazor
Hazor is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Negev in modern-day Israel. Known today as El Jebariyeh. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
This Hazor of the Negev, tentatively identified with El Jebariyeh, appears in the post-exilic resettlement list of Nehemiah 11:25–36, where Judahite families are recorded as reoccupying towns in the southern tribal territories following the return from Babylon. The passage situates Hazor within a list of Negev settlements alongside Dibon, Jekabzeel, Jeshua, Moladah, and Beer-sheba, reflecting the organized effort under Nehemiah to repopulate ancestral lands. The Negev region had been substantially depopulated during the Babylonian campaigns and the subsequent Edomite incursions into southern Judah. The resettlement of these towns represents a significant act of restoration and covenant renewal, as communities reclaimed lands their ancestors had inhabited before the exile. Though this Hazor receives no individual narrative in Scripture, its presence in the resettlement list testifies to the comprehensive scope of God's restoration promises. The return to ancestral inheritances in the Negev fulfilled the prophetic vision of a renewed people in a renewed land.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
El Jebariyeh has been proposed as the location of this Negev Hazor based on its geographical position in the northern Negev consistent with the list sequence in Nehemiah 11. The northern Negev experienced significant Iron Age II occupation followed by a notable gap in the Persian period at many sites, reflecting the disruption caused by the Babylonian conquest. Archaeological surveys of the northern Negev have identified scattered Persian-period pottery at some sites, suggesting that resettlement was partial and gradual. Without targeted excavation at El Jebariyeh specifically, the identification remains tentative and dependent primarily on topographical reasoning and place-name analysis.
Verse Appearances (1)
Josh
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]