Karnaim
קַרְנַיִם
Where was biblical Karnaim? At Sheikh Sa'd, near Nawa, in Syria, about 45 km east of Tiberias. I mark it probable.
In Abraham's day four kings from the east swept down through Bashan and crushed the Rephaim, the old race of giants, at Ashteroth-karnaim. Centuries later the army of the northern kingdom took Karnaim back and could not stop bragging about it.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Sheikh Sa'd, near Nawa, in Syria
- How sure
- Probable The best case we have, with real alternatives.
- Other names
- Ashteroth-karnaim, Carnaim, Carnion, Karnein, Sheikh Sa'd
- Location
- 32.8358° N, 36.0350° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
Amos turned the boast into a joke. Karnaim means "two horns," and in the Tanach a horn stands for strength. So when Israel said "by our own strength we took Karnaim," the name did the mocking for him. They were proud of taking "Horns" with their own horns. In the same breath Amos needles them for celebrating Lo-devar, a town whose name sounds like "nothing."
The location comes from later writers. The books of Maccabees tell how Judah the Maccabee captured Karnaim and burned its temple. Eusebius knew it as Karnaia, a large village. Both place it in the Bashan, near Ashtaroth. Most scholars put it at Sheikh Sa'd, about 4 km north of Tell Ashtara. In time Karnaim replaced Ashtaroth as the district capital, and the two names ran together into one.
Sheikh Sa'd keeps another memory. A basalt stele of Pharaoh Ramesses II stands in the village, and the locals revere it as the Rock of Job. The Job tradition here goes back at least to the 4th century, and Eusebius's Karnaia was linked with Job too. That thread ties the village to the ancient town.
Still, the case rests on location and tradition, not on an excavated city or an inscription. Probable is the right word.
Some read Ashteroth-karnaim as a single city at Tell Ashtara, with no separate Karnaim at all. The map follows the majority and gives the two neighbors two labels.
Visiting today
Sheikh Sa'd is in southern Syria and closed to visitors from Israel. The Rock of Job is kept at a shrine in the village.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Karnaim on the interactive map →
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- Ashtaroth 4 km southwest
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- Geshur 39 km west
- The Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) 43 km west
- Hammath 46 km west