Pirathon was an ancient town mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

. Its exact whereabouts are not known. The Hebrew name agrees closely with that of modern

Fara'ata Fara'ata ( ar, فرعتا) was a Palestinian people, Palestinian village in the Qalqilya Governorate in the Western area of the West Bank, located 16 kilometers Southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the vil ...

(Israelite grid 165177), seven miles WSW of

Shechem Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...

, leading to common identification of the two, though Conder and Kitchener claim that the earliest reference to the name "Fera'ata" dates to the 14th century. They also state that the

Samaritan Chronicle The ''Book of Joshua'', sometimes called the ''Samaritan Chronicle'', is a Samaritan chronicle so called because the greater part of it is devoted to the history of Joshua. It is extant in two divergent recensions, one in Samaritan Hebrew and t ...

(dated by them to the 12th century) refers to the town as Ophrah, though th
Chronicle
(ch. 41) identifies Fer'ata as west of Shechem. Its tribal affiliation with Ephraim in Judges 12:15 has been questioned on the grounds that

lies north of the main course of

Wadi Qana Wadi Qana (, he, נחל קנה, translit=Nahal Qana), is a wadi, with an intermittent stream meandering westwards from Huwara south of Nablus in the West Bank down to Jaljulia in Israel where it flows into the Yarkon River, of which it is a ...

, which formed the southern border of

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh (die ...

(). However, the

this far east has divided in to numerous tributaries. The village sits on a prominent hill, and the valley to its north and west drains into the

, so it might well have been reckoned to Ephraim. Brenton translates as ''Pharathon'' ( gr, Φαραθών) in his version of the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

.Brenton
Judges 12:15
/ref> The town is notable as the home of Hillel, father of Abdon, one of the

judges A judge is an official who presides over a court. Judge or Judges may also refer to: Roles *Judge, an alternative name for an adjudicator in a competition in theatre, music, sport, etc. *Judge, an alternative name/aviator call sign for a membe ...

of early Israel (), and because Benaiah, one of King David's captains (or " mighty ones"), originated there ().

References

{{Authority control Hebrew Bible cities