place · also Hormah
Zephath
צְפַ֑ת
- verses
- 9
- first named
- Numbers 14:45
- last named
- 1 Samuel 30:30
- feature
- settlement
- coordinates
- 31.21°N · 34.96°E
Tel Masos (OpenBible)
Scholarship offers 7 identifications for this place. The leading one is shown; the others are recorded in the gazetteer.
Description
Zephath in the text
Zephath, later renamed Hormah, was a Canaanite city located in the Negev desert region. During the Israelites' wanderings in the wilderness, they attempted to enter Canaan from the south, but the king of Arad fought against them and took some prisoners. Israel vowed to totally destroy the Canaanite cities if God would give them victory. God granted their request, and the Israelites "utterly destroyed" the Canaanites and named the place Hormah, meaning "destruction" (Num.21.1-3).
However, Israel later refused to enter Canaan from Kadesh Barnea out of unbelief. When they then presumptuously tried to go up, the Amalekites and Canaanites defeated them as far as Hormah (Num.14.45; Dt.1:44). Much later, after Joshua's conquests, Judah and Simeon fought against Zephath, defeated it, and renamed it Hormah (Jdg.1.17). The city is subsequently listed among the towns in the Negev allotted to Judah and Simeon (Jos.15.30; 19:4; 1Ch.4.30). David later sent some of the spoils from his victory over the Amalekites to his friends in Hormah (1Sa.30.30). The exact location is uncertain but it was likely somewhere south of the Dead Sea.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Site of
Took part in
Stands in the same events as
- Israel2 events
- Canaan2 events
- Judah1 event
- Destruction1 event
- Amorites1 event
- Amalek1 event
- Simeon1 event
- Beersheba1 event
- Seir1 event
- Perizzites1 event
- Ziklag1 event
- Baalath-beer1 event
and 7 more, ordered by how many events they share.
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 9, across 6 books. The name is written 10 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Sources