Kamon or Camon (in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: קָמוֹן, in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Καμων, transliterated as ''Kamôn'') is a place mentioned in the

Bible 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) originally writt ...

. Located in

Gilead Gilead or Gilad (, ; ''Gilʿāḏ'', , ''Jalʻād'') is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan.''Easton's Bible Dictionary'Galeed''/ref> The region is bounded in the west by the J ...

, it is said that

Jair In the Hebrew Bible, Biblical Book of Judges, Jair or Yair ( ''Yā’īr'', "he enlightens") was a man from Gilead. He was of the Tribe of Manasseh and also descended from the Tribe of Judah (Numbers 32:39-41, 1 Chronicles 2:21-23). Jair Hebrew ...

was buried there. It is not yet clear whether it is a real place or primarily a symbolic one.

History

Biblical account

According to the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the ...

, Kamon is located in Gilead and is the place where Judge

is buried.

Sources

Kamon is mentioned only once in the

. While only one

name is given in the

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

, both Καμων (Kamôn) and Ραμμω (Rhammô) are found in the

Septuagint manuscripts The earliest surviving manuscripts of the Septuagint (abbreviated as LXX meaning 70), an ancient (first centuries BCE) translation of the ancient Hebrew Torah into Koine Greek, include three 2nd century BCE fragments from the books of Leviticu ...

. In the 19th century, Easton believed it was probably located on the slopes of

Mount Carmel Mount Carmel (; ), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias (; ), is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. The range is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. A number of towns are situat ...

. One possible etymology of the term could come from קָמָה (Qamāh), which means "to rise", possibly indicating that it was a fortified place situated on high ground. A place named Καμους (Kamous) was mentioned by

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

and was conquered by

Antiochus III Antiochus III the Great (; , ; 3 July 187 BC) was the sixth ruler of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 223 to 187 BC. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the rest of West Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC. Rising to th ...

. It might be the same location. However, according to more recent research, the term might have a primarily symbolic meaning, deriving from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Kαμίνος (Kaminos), which means "furnace". This interpretation is reinforced by

Pseudo-Philo Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for the unknown, anonymous author of the ''Biblical Antiquities''. This text is also commonly known today under the Latin title ''Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum'' (Book of Biblical Antiquities), a title that i ...

, who interprets a passage related to Jair by stating: "And in the fire in which you will die, there you will have a dwelling place."

References

{{Authority control Hebrew Bible places Geography of Jordan Book of Judges Gilead