Kamon or Camon (in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: קָמוֹן, in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: Καμων, transliterated as ''Kamôn'') is a place mentioned in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. Located in

Gilead Gilead or Gilad (; he, גִּלְעָד ''Gīləʿāḏ'', ar, جلعاد, Ǧalʻād, Jalaad) is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan.''Easton's Bible Dictionary'Galeed''/ref> Th ...

, it is said that

Jair In the Biblical Book of Judges, Jair or Yair ( he, יָאִיר ''Yā’īr'', "he enlightens") was a man from Gilead of the Tribe of Manasseh, east of the River Jordan, who judged Israel for 22 years, after the death of Tola, who had ruled of ...

was buried there. It is not yet clear whether it is a real place or primarily a symbolic one.

History

Biblical account

According to the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom i ...

, Kamon is located in Gilead and is the place where Judge

is buried.

Sources

Kamon is mentioned only once in the

. While only one

name is given in the

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

, both Καμων (Kamôn) and Ραμμω (Rhammô) are found in the

Septuagint manuscripts The Septuagint (LXX), the ancient (first centuries BC) Alexandrian translation of Jewish scriptures into Koine Greek exists in various manuscript versions. List of Septuagint manuscripts There are currently over 2000 classified manuscripts ...

. In the 19th century, Easton believed it was probably located on the slopes of

Mount Carmel Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/Elijah), is a c ...

. One possible etymology of the term could come from קָמָה (Qamāh), which means "to rise", possibly indicating that it was a fortified place situated on high ground. A place named Καμους (Kamous) was mentioned by

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

and was conquered by

Antiochus III Antiochus III the Great (; grc-gre, Ἀντίoχoς Μέγας ; c. 2413 July 187 BC) was a Greek Hellenistic king and the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 222 to 187 BC. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the res ...

. It might be the same location. However, according to more recent research, the term might have a primarily symbolic meaning, deriving from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Kαμίνος (Kaminos), which means "furnace". This interpretation is reinforced by

Pseudo-Philo Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for the unknown, anonymous author of ''Biblical Antiquities''. This text is also commonly known today under the Latin title ''Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum'' (Book of Biblical Antiquities), a title that is no ...

, who interprets a passage related to Jair by stating: "And in the fire in which you will die, there you will have a dwelling place."

References

{{Authority control Hebrew Bible places Geography of Jordan Book of Judges Gilead