Pirathon was an ancient town mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Fara'ata (Israelite grid 165177), seven miles WSW of

Shechem Shechem ( ; , ; ), also spelled Sichem ( ; ) and other variants, was an ancient city in the southern Levant. Mentioned as a Canaanite city in the Amarna Letters, it later appears in the Hebrew Bible as the first capital of the Kingdom of Israe ...

, leading to common identification of the two, though Conder and Kitchener claim that the earliest reference to the name "Fera'ata" dates to the 14th century. They also state that the Samaritan Chronicle (dated by them to the 12th century) refers to the town as Ophrah, though th
Chronicle
(ch. 41) identifies Fer'ata as west of Shechem. Its tribal affiliation with Ephraim in Judges 12:15 has been questioned on the grounds that Fara'ata lies north of the main course of

Wadi Qana Wadi Qana (, ) is a wadi with an intermittent stream meandering westwards from Huwara, south of Nablus, in the West Bank, Palestine, down to Jaljulia in Israel, from where it flows into the Yarkon River, of which it is a tributary. Geog ...

, which formed the southern border of

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

(). However, the

this far east has divided in to numerous tributaries. The village sits on a prominent hill, and the valley to its north and west drains into the

, so it might well have been reckoned to Ephraim. Brenton translates as ''Pharathon'' () in his version of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

.Brenton
Judges 12:15
/ref> The town is notable as the home of Hillel, father of Abdon, one of the

judges A judge is an official who presides over a court. Judge or Judges may also refer to: Roles *Judge, an alternative name for an adjudicator in a competition in theatre, music, sport, etc. *Judge, an alternative name/aviator call sign for a membe ...

of early Israel (), and because Benaiah, one of

King David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

's captains (or " mighty ones"), originated there ().

References

{{Authority control Hebrew Bible cities