Arad
עֲרָד
Where was biblical Arad? At Tel Arad National Park, west of modern Arad, about 30 km east of Beersheba. I mark it very likely.
As Israel approached from the south, the king of Arad struck first and took captives. Israel vowed to destroy his towns, and the place was called Hormah. Centuries later Judean soldiers in the fortress here wrote their orders on broken pottery.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Arad National Park, west of modern Arad
- How sure
- Very likely Strong evidence, with no serious rival.
- Other names
- Tel Arad, Tell 'Arad
- Location
- 31.2783° N, 35.1267° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The name never left. The Arabic name of the mound, Tell 'Arad, kept it alive through more than a thousand years when no one lived here.
The writing on the pottery settles the later city. In the hilltop fortress excavators found over two hundred Hebrew inscriptions on potsherds, ration orders and military dispatches from the age of the kings. Two of them name Arad. The fortress also held a small Judean temple with an altar, two incense altars and standing stones. A Judean shrine, in a royal fort, on the southern frontier.
One problem remains. The Torah's king of Arad fought Moses, but the tell has no remains from the Middle or Late Bronze Age, the time before Israel settled the land. So either "Arad" then meant the whole region, the Negev of Arad where Moses' in-laws, the Kenites, later settled, or the Canaanite king ruled from Tel Malhata, about 12 km southwest, which has strong fortifications from that age. Pharaoh Shishak's list names two Arads, which supports the idea of two sites.
So the Arad of the kings is here. The Arad of Moses may be here as a region, or next door at Malhata.
Visiting today
Tel Arad National Park shows a restored Early Bronze Age city below and the Judean fortress with its temple above. The original objects from the temple's holy of holies are in the Israel Museum.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Arad on the interactive map →
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