Beth Horon
בֵּית חוֹרֹן · “Beit Horon” on the map
Where was biblical Beth Horon? At Beit Ur al-Fauqa and Beit Ur al-Tahta, by Route 443, about 17 km northwest of Jerusalem. I mark it very likely.
Five Amorite kings fled down this slope from Joshua. Huge hailstones fell on them as they ran, and the hail killed more of them than Israel's swords did.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Beit Ur al-Fauqa and Beit Ur al-Tahta, by Route 443
- How sure
- Very likely Strong evidence, with no serious rival.
- Other names
- Beth-horon, Upper Beth-horon, Lower Beth-horon, Beit Ur al-Fauqa, Beit Ur al-Tahta
- Location
- 31.8861° N, 35.1141° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The Bible knows two towns here, Upper and Lower Beit Horon. A woman of Ephraim named Sheerah built them both. They sit on what the text calls the ascent and the descent of Beit Horon, the road that climbs from the coastal plain to the plateau at Gibeon.
Two Arab villages sit on that same ridge road today. One is Beit Ur al-Fauqa, upper Beit Ur. The other, about 3 km further west and lower down, is Beit Ur al-Tahta, lower Beit Ur. They keep the name, and they keep the pairing too, upper and lower, exactly as the Bible has it.
The road explains the history. It is the easiest way up to Jerusalem from the west, so armies kept fighting on it. A Philistine raiding party took the Beit Horon road during Saul's war. Solomon fortified Lower Beit Horon to guard it. And Josephus describes how the Roman general Cestius Gallus was badly beaten on this slope at the start of the great revolt against Rome.
Judah the Maccabee won his first great battle on this road. In 166 BCE the Greek commander Seron marched up the ascent of Beit Horon with a large army to crush the revolt. Judah's men were few, tired and hungry, and they asked how they could fight so many. Judah answered that victory does not depend on the size of an army, but on strength from Heaven. He charged down on them on the narrow slope. Seron's army broke and fled down the descent of Beit Horon to the plain, leaving about eight hundred dead. A few years later the Greek general Nicanor camped at Beit Horon, and Judah destroyed his army nearby.
Stand at the top and look west. The Amorites were running downhill toward the Ayalon Valley, on a narrow ridge with nowhere to hide from the sky.
Visiting today
The two villages lie just off Route 443. You can trace the old ascent road along the ridge, but there is no developed archaeological site.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Beit Horon on the interactive map →
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- Gibeon 8 km southeast
- Kiriath Jearim 9 km south
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