Dothan
דֹּתָן · “Dotan” on the map
Where was biblical Dothan? At Tel Dothan, in the Dothan Valley southwest of Jenin, about 50 km southeast of Haifa. I mark it certain.
Joseph went north from Shechem looking for his brothers and found them grazing the flocks here. They threw him into a pit and sold him to a caravan bound for Egypt.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Dothan, in the Dothan Valley southwest of Jenin
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Dothaim, Dothain, Tel Dothan, Tell Dotha
- Location
- 32.4128° N, 35.2383° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The Bible tells the walk step by step. Jacob sent Joseph to Shechem. A man found him wandering in the fields and told him the brothers had moved on to Dothan. So Dothan lies beyond Shechem, in good grazing land.
The name held on. Local villagers still called the mound Dothan when a traveller passed through in 1851. Eusebius placed Dothaim, "where Joseph found his brothers grazing," about twelve miles north of Samaria. That is exactly where the tel stands.
The geography makes the story work. The Dothan Valley is broad pasture, the kind of place shepherds would bring their flocks. It also sits on the natural route from Shechem north to the Jezreel Valley, the road a caravan of Ishmaelites going down to Egypt would follow. The brothers were grazing beside a highway. That is why a buyer came along at just the right moment. Excavators found a Middle Bronze Age city, a large Israelite complex and later Assyrian buildings, a real town through the biblical periods.
Centuries later the king of Aram heard that Elisha was in Dothan and sent an army by night to surround the town. Elisha's servant woke up terrified. Elisha prayed, and the servant saw the hills around Dothan full of horses and chariots of fire. The valley is ringed by those hills still.
There is no serious rival to this site.
Visiting today
Tel Dothan is an unreconstructed mound with old excavation trenches near Jenin. Access for Israelis requires coordination.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Dotan on the interactive map →
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- Taanach 13 km north
- Samaria (Shomron), the City 15 km south
- Harosheth Haggoyim 16 km northwest
- Tirzah 17 km southeast
- Mount Gilboa 18 km northeast
- Jezreel 18 km northeast