Elias van Nijmegen - Bijbelse voorstelling, Abimelech geeft Sara aan Abraham terug - 11096 - Museum Rotterdam

Gerar ( ''Gərār'', "lodging-place") was a Philistine town and district in what is today south central

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, mentioned in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

and in the Second Book of Chronicles of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' International Standard Bible Encyclopedia The ''International Standard Bible Encyclopedia'' refers to two different versions of a Bible encyclopedia: a 1915 fundamentalist edition, and a 1979–1995 revised evangelical edition. The first version was published under the general editorshi ...

, the biblical ''valley of Gerar'' () was probably located in the area of a valley known in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

as Wady Sheri'a, and in

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

Nahal Gerar Nahal Gerar, also ''Nachal Grar'' ( he, נחל גרר) is a wadi in Israel, in the Negev desert. Its Arabic name is Wadi esh-Sheri'a (also Wady el Sharia and other variations). Along this wadi, there are several important ancient Bronze Age archae ...

. Most commentators see the mound of

Tel Haror Tel Haror (Hebrew name) or Tell Abu Hureyra (Arabic name; also spelled Hureira and Hareira), also known as ''Tel Heror'', is an archaeological site in the western Negev Desert, Israel, northwest of Beersheba, about 20 km east of the Mediterra ...

(Hebrew) or Tell Abu Hureyra (Arabic) as representing the ancient Gerar. Some older commentaries, such as

Smith's Bible Dictionary ''Smith's Bible Dictionary'', originally named ''A Dictionary of the Bible'', is a 19th-century Bible dictionary containing upwards of four thousand entries that became named after its editor, William Smith. Its popularity was such that condense ...

, stated simply that Gerar was located "south of Gaza". Also, a ninth century rabbinical source (

Saadia Gaon Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

) identified Gerar with

Haluza The ancient city of Halasa or Chellous ( gr, Χελλοὺς), Elusa () in the Byzantine period, was a city in the Negev near present-day Kibbutz Mash'abei Sadeh that was once part of the Nabataean Incense Route. It lay on the route from Petra t ...

, located along the

Besor The Besor ( he, נחל הבשור, ''Nahal HaBesor'') is a wadi in southern Israel. The stream begins at Mount Boker (near Sde Boker), and spills into the Mediterranean Sea near Al-Zahra in the Gaza Strip, where it is called Wadi Gaza ( ar, � ...

River in the

Negev The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its sout ...

.Rabbi

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, enco ...

Translation of the word Gerar (Judeo-Arabic: אלכ'לוץ = ''al-Khalūṣ'') in the Pentateuch (''Tafsir''), s.v. Genesis 10:19, Genesis 20:2, Genesis 26:17, 20. On Haluza's proximity to Gerar, see: M. Naor, Gerar — Tell el Far'a, Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society (1955), pp. 99–102 (Hebrew) However, according to recent archaeological research, Haluza only dates to the

Nabatean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Lev ...

period.

Biblical accounts

Biblically, the town features in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis. These record that

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

and

Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...

each stayed at Gerar, near what became

Beersheba Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...

, and that each passed his wife off as his sister, leading to complications involving Gerar's Philistine king,

Abimelech Abimelech (also spelled Abimelek or Avimelech; ) was the generic name given to all Philistine kings in the Hebrew Bible from the time of Abraham through King David. In the Book of Judges, Abimelech, son of Gideon, of the Tribe of Manasseh, i ...

. (, and ) The ''

Haggadah The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...

'' identifies the two references to Abimelech as two separate people, the second being the first Abimelech's son, and that his original name was Benmelech son of the King" but he changed his name to his father's, meaning "my father is king". I
2 Chronicles 14:12-15
Gerar and its surrounding towns figure in the account of King Asa's defeat of Zerah's vast Cushite forces.

References

{{coord, 31.3817, N, 34.6069, E, source:wikidata, display=title Hebrew Bible valleys Former populated places in Israel Former populated places in the State of Palestine Vayeira Philistine cities

Biblical accounts

See also

References