Beth-Zur (also Beit Tzur, Bethsura) is a

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

site of historic and archaeological importance in the mountains of

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

in southern

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

, now part of the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. Beth Zur is mentioned several times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

. The Battle of Beth-Zur took place here in 164 BCE.1 Maccabees 4:26-35 Beth-Zur has been identified with the site of Khirbet et-Tubeiqa, near Khirbet Burj as-Sur.

Etymology

The name Beth-Zur means "house of rock" or (less likely) "house of the god Zur". A person named Beth Zur is mentioned in

1 Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tan ...

(). The Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur was named after the biblical town, founded in 1984 just 2 km north-east.

In the Hebrew Bible

Beth-Zur is mentioned in

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

as being near Halhul and Gedor, in the Judean hill country (). According to the same verse, it was part of the territory of the

Tribe of Judah According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah (, ''Shevet Yehudah'') was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah (son of Jacob), Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was one of the tribes to take its place in Canaan, occupying it ...

. 1 Chronicles, on the other hand, associates the town with

Caleb Caleb ( ; , Tiberian vocalization: , Modern Israeli Hebrew: ) is a figure who appears in the Hebrew Bible as a representative of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Following the Israelite conquest of Ca ...

(1 Chronicles 2:42–50).

2 Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tan ...

credits

Rehoboam Rehoboam (; , , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the split of the united Kingdom of Israel. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a grandson of David. In the account of I Ki ...

with its fortification (). The prophet

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

is said to have been the ruler of a half district of the same name (). The historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

places the distance between Beth-zur and Beit Zechariah at 70 '' stadia''.

Bronze Age to Persian period

O.R. Sellers, excavating at Khirbet et-Tubeiqa in 1957, discovered that the site was first settled at the end of the third millennium BCE, and was fortified, like many other

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite cities, during the Middle Bronze Age IIB in the 18th–17th centuries BCE. The settlement continued into the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

, and a rare coin inscribed "the governor Hezekiah" attests to the existence of Beth-Zur during the

Persian period The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

. The original inscription is ''yhzqyh hphh'', 'Yehezqiyah ha-pechah' (Yehezqiyah the governor), and the coin might also be from the time when Persian rule was replaced by the Ptolemaic.

Hellenistic period

Betsoura, as the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

called the town, reached a peak of prosperity during the Hellenistic period. A citadel was built at Betsoura during the 3rd century BCE, when a series of

wars War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of State (polity), states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or betwe ...

between the

Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...

and the

Ptolemaic Kingdom The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...

of Egypt rocked the region. In 164 BC, during the

Maccabean Revolt The Maccabean Revolt () was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167 to 160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of ...

, the Battle of Beth-Zur was fought here. The site's importance lay in its strategic location on a hilltop dominating the highway, preventing the approach of a hostile army from the

Valley of Elah The Valley of Elah, Ella Valley ("Valley of the terebinth"; from the ), or Wadi es-Sunt (), is a long, shallow valley in the Shephelah area of Israel. It is best-known from the Hebrew Bible incident where David defeated Goliath ( 1 Samuel 17:2 a ...

to the Judean plateau. Josephus describes Beth-Zur as the mightiest stronghold in

.Ant., XIII, v, 6 The battle was the confrontation between the

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...

Greek general

Lysias Lysias (; ; c. 445 – c. 380 BC) was a Logographer (legal), logographer (speech writer) in ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrac ...

and the

Maccabees The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees (, or , ; or ; , ), were a group of Jews, Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty ...

, led by

Judas Maccabeus Judas Maccabaeus or Maccabeus ( ), also known as Judah Maccabee (), was a Jewish priest (''kohen'') and a son of the priest Mattathias. He led the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire (167–160 BCE). The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah ("Ded ...

, resulting in the defeat of Lysias and his forces. This victory was followed by the recapture of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

by the Maccabees. The key to the battle was the exploitation of the natural terrain and fortifications. Once victorious, Judas rebuilt the old Middle Bronze Age ramparts and the more recent citadel. The fortified town then changed hands repeatedly until regaining the peaceful character lost during the Maccabean Wars, under the reign of

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

(r. 134–104). However, by 100 BCE the town had been fully abandoned.

Roman period

Beth-Zur was inhabited in the lifetimes of

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

(260/265–339/340), who mentions it as the village of Bethsoro (Onomasticon 52:2), and of

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

Crusader period

Khirbet Burj as-Sur, the medieval site at Beth-Zur, has the Palestine grid coordinates 1594.1104. The ruins of a tower stand near the main road between

and Hebron, approximately 4 miles north of Hebron. The western wall, the most visible remnant of the building, is standing to a height of 9.5 m. Beithsur or Bethsura, as the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

called Beth-Zur, was given in 1136 to the

Hospitallers The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

by the lord of Hebron.

In popular culture

The existentialist author

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

wrote a play set in Beth-zur while he was prisoner in a

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

, called Bariona or the Son of Thunder. It narrates the story of a Jewish village that lost faith just before Jesus Christ was born.

References

Bibliography

*Masterman, E. W. G. (1915).
Beth-Zur
. ''International Standard Bible Encyclopedia''. Eds. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. Retrieved December 9, 2005. *Hutchinson, J. (1915).
Lysias
. ''International Standard Bible Encyclopedia''. Eds. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. Retrieved December 12, 2007. {{Authority control Hebrew Bible cities Former populated places in Palestine Ancient Jewish settlements of Judaea Canaanite cities