Aroer ( he, עֲרוֹעֵר, עֲרֹעֵר) is a biblical town on the north bank of the River Arnon to the

east East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

, in present-day

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Ri ...

. The town was an ancient Moabite settlement, and is mentioned in the Bible. Aroer is identified with the modern village of ' Ara'ir in Jordan.

Aroer on the Arnon

Location

Henry Baker Tristram Henry Baker Tristram FRS (11 May 1822 – 8 March 1906) was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution and creation. Biogra ...

suggested that "Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon" () is the place of modern 'Ara'ir on the north bank of the

Wadi Mujib Wadi Mujib ( ar, وادي الموجب, ''Wadi el-Mujib''), also known as Arnon Stream (Hebrew: נַחַל ארנון), is a river in Jordan. The river empties into the Dead Sea circa below sea level. Today, Wadi Mujib is fed by seven tributa ...

ravine, the biblical Arnon stream, about from the mouth of the river. The city was still standing in the time of

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christ ...

. This place was usually described by its situation, in order to distinguish it from other localities of the same name.

Biblical mentions

It appears first as having been captured from Moab by the

Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied lar ...

king Sihon. After the

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

attack on the

Amorites The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied lar ...

, it was assigned as part of the territory of the tribe of Reuben, whose southern frontier it marked. This is the city mentioned in , with the southern towns, as having been built by the

Tribe of Gad According to the Bible, the Tribe of Gad () was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel who, after the Exodus from Egypt, settled on the eastern side of the Jordan River. It is one of the ten lost tribes.Tribe still originated from the original Heb ...

before the

Tribal allotments of Israel The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‎ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israe ...

. When

Hazael Hazael (; he, חֲזָאֵל, translit=Ḥazaʾēl, or , romanized as: ; oar, 𐡇𐡆𐡀𐡋, translit= , from the triliteral Semitic root ''h-z-y'', "to see"; his full name meaning, " El/God has seen"; akk, 𒄩𒍝𒀪𒀭, Ḫa-za-’- il ...

Aram Damascus The Kingdom of Aram-Damascus () was an Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later y ...

took the Transjordan territory from the

Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel may refer to any of the historical kingdoms of ancient Israel, including: Fully independent (c. 564 years) * Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) (1047–931 BCE), the legendary kingdom established by the Israelites and uniti ...

, Aroer is given as its southern limit. It is clear, from , that the Moabites ultimately recovered it from Israel. In , an Adadah is mentioned. According to Cheyne and Black, arguing partially on the basis of a

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

reading of ''Arouel,'' this Adadah may in fact be the result of a scribal error, with the text originally reading ''Ararah'', meaning Aroer. According to a

prophecy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a '' prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pre ...

in the Book of Isaiah, "the cities of Aroer" will become forsaken; however, the Septuagint relates this verse to Damascus in Syria, translating as "deserted for ever" (see Isaiah 17:2).Benson Commentary
on Isaiah 17, accessed 31 March 2018

Archaeology

In the Mesha inscription, line 26, it is mentioned as having been built by the Moabites.

References and sources

;References ;Sources
Aroer, Jewish Encyclopædia

External Links

Photos of Ara'ir
at the

American Center of Research The American Center of Research (ACOR) is a private, not-for-profit scholarly and educational organization. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, with a facility in Amman, Jordan, ACOR promotes knowledge of Jordan and the interconnected region, past and ...

{{coord, 31.4672, N, 35.5633, E, source:wikidata, display=title Moab Torah cities Archaeological sites in Jordan