Zorah ( he, צרעה) or Tzorah (), was a biblical town in the Judaean Foothills. It is identified with the depopulated village of Sar'a. It has been identified with the former village of Sar'a, now often referred to as Tel Tzora.

Location

Zorah was situated on the crest of a hill overlooking the valley of Sorek. It lies at an elevation of about above sea-level. It is located 23 kilometers west of Jerusalem near Nahal Sorek.

History

Zorah was mentioned together with Ajalon in the

Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...

as a city attacked by the

Apiru Habiru (sometimes written as Hapiru, and more accurately as ʿApiru, meaning "dusty, dirty"; Sumerian: 𒊓𒄤, ''sagaz''; Akkadian: 𒄩𒁉𒊒, ''ḫabiru'' or ''ʿaperu'') is a term used in 2nd-millennium BCE texts throughout the Fertile C ...

. Zorah has been identified with the biblical Zoreah (), and is the birthplace of Samson. states: :"there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah". Samson's grave is recorded as being near there (), and which the historian Josephus says was in a village called Sarasat. In , Zorah is mentioned in the allotment of the Tribe of Judah, on the border with the Tribe of Dan. It was most likely the Danites who occupied Zorah. According to the Book of Chronicles, it was fortified by

Rehoboam Rehoboam (; , ; , ; la, Roboam, ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the last monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel and the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the former's split. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a gr ...

().

The Palestinian village Sar'a was located in the presumed location of the ancient town. It was depopulated during the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

. Conder and

Kitchener Kitchener may refer to: People * Earl Kitchener, a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom ** Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (1850–1916), British Field Marshal and 1st Earl Kitchener ** Henry Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener (1846–1937) ...

, describing the site in 1881, said that, with the exception of the olive groves to the north of the village, the low hill on which the village lies is "bare and white," a place now planted with a pine forest by the

Jewish National Fund Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subseq ...

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

Tzora is now located nearby, at the foot of Zorah mountain, on its southern side.

Archeology

Caves, tombs, cisterns and a winepress were discovered at Tel Tzora. Two winepresses were carved into the rock, one of which was paved with mosaic. A rock-hewn altar was found just below the tell. It has been nicknamed "Manoah's Altar", after Samson's father.

References

External links

* Surah (Zorah) in Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17
IAA
Wikimedia commons {{DEFAULTSORT:Zorah Hebrew Bible cities Former populated places in Southwest Asia Archaeological sites in Israel