Hazor
חָצוֹר
Where was biblical Hazor? At Tel Hazor, north of Rosh Pinna, about 25 km north of Tiberias. I mark it certain.
Jabin king of Hazor called the kings of the north together against Joshua, an army as many as the sand on the seashore. Joshua beat them at the Waters of Merom, then turned back and burned Hazor. Of all the northern cities, Hazor was the one he burned.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Hazor, north of Rosh Pinna
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Chatzor, Hatzor, Tel Hazor, Tell el-Qedah, Tell Waqqas
- Location
- 33.0174° N, 35.5682° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
Size settles it. With its lower city the tel covers about 200 acres, and nothing in the region compares. The Bible gives the reason in one line: "Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms." Hazor was known far beyond Canaan. The Mari archives name it, and so do Egyptian texts and the Amarna letters. Cuneiform tablets found on the tel itself confirm a major royal city. One of them, from the 18th or 17th century BCE, is a letter addressed to Ibni, king of Hazor. A letter in the Mari archives names a king of Hazor Yabni-Addu. Ibni and Yabni are the same name as Jabin. So Jabin was a royal name at Hazor long before Joshua, which explains why the Bible has a Jabin of Hazor in Joshua's day and another in Deborah's.
Excavators found the Canaanite palace and temples destroyed in a fierce fire. The Bible already tells us who burned Hazor. Joshua "burned Hazor with fire," and it singles Hazor out as the one northern city he burned. Archaeologists still argue over how to date the burn layers, but the fire is there in the ground.
Hazor rose again. In Judges a later Jabin "reigned in Hazor," and his general Sisera oppressed Israel until Deborah and Barak broke him. Solomon fortified Hazor along with Megiddo and Gezer. Excavators found a six-chambered gate here that matches the gates at those two cities. When Tiglath-pileser came down from the north, Hazor fell to Assyria with the rest of Naphtali.
Visiting today
Tel Hazor National Park shows the Canaanite palace, the six-chambered gate, Israelite storehouses and the Iron Age water system.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Hazor on the interactive map →
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- Kedesh Naphtali 11 km north
- Geshur 13 km southeast
- Rakkath 24 km south
- Dan 27 km north
- Abel Beth Maacah 27 km north
- Hammath 28 km south