Beth-Nimrah or Beth-nimrah (), also called Nimrin and Bethennabris, was an ancient city in Transjordan, which features prominently the

history of ancient Israel and Judah The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two Israelite kingdoms in the mi ...

. Tell Nimrin has been identified by

Nelson Glueck Nelson Glueck (June 4, 1900 – February 12, 1971) was an American rabbi, professor, academic and archaeology, archaeologist. He served as president of Hebrew Union College from 1947 until his death, and his pioneering work in biblical archaeolo ...

as the last of three sites successively occupied by the ancient city.

Etymology

Beth Nimrah means 'house of a leopard' in Hebrew, ''beit'' meaning 'house' and ''namer'' 'leopard' (cf. '' nimr'' in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

). Later in antiquity, the city took on the name Nimrin,Glueck (1943), pp. 10-12. until its demise in the first century CE. In

Talmudic The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

literature, it is mentioned as Nimrin or Nimri. The name is preserved in the names Tell Nimrin (for the archaeological mound) and

Wadi Nimrin Wadi Shueib (), Arabic for the Valley of Jethro and properly Wadi Shuʿeib but with many variant romanisations, is a wadi in Jordan. The alluvial fan of the wadi where it enters the southern part of the eastern Jordan Valley is known as Wadi ...

(for the

wadi Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...

-type valley). Glueck suggests a possible connection between Wadi Nimrin and the biblical "Waters of Nimrim" ( and ), although he identifies "this stream" with Seil en-Numeirah (not clear if he refers by "this stream" to Seil en-Numeirah, or to Jeremiah's "Waters of Nimrim"). Seil en-Numeira is a stream that flows into the Dead Sea at its southern end.

Location

The city was located in the Jordan Valley, approximately north of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

and east of

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

, on whose south (left) bank all the three sites identified by Glueck with Beth Nimra are located, marks the northern limit of the

Plains of Moab The Plains of Moab () are mentioned in three books of the Hebrew Bible (Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua) as an area in Transjordan, stretching along the Jordan "across from Jericho", and more specifically "from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim" ( ...

. The ancient city was believed by Glueck to have moved twice in its history, occupying successively three

mounds A mound is an artificial heap or pile, especially of earth, rocks, or sand. Mound and Mounds may also refer to: Places * Mound, Louisiana, United States * Mound, Minnesota, United States * Mound, Texas, United States * Mound, West Virginia * Moun ...

: Tell el-Mustaḥ during the Early Bronze I, Tell Bleibil in Iron Age I-II, and Tell Nimrin in the Roman through to the Early Muslim period, with similar large historical sedentary habitation gaps as those encountered elsewhere across the Jordan Valley. Glueck based his dates on sherds found at the surface and, in the case of Tell el-Mustah and Tell Nimrin, in cuts caused by modern roads. Tell el-Mustah rises south of Wadi Sha'ib (Wadi Shu'ayb in more recent spelling), which is the name of an easterly section of the same wadi which takes on the name Wadi Nimrin when it reaches Tell Nimrin. Tell Bleibil is just across the wadi from Tell el-Mustah, so on the north side of Wadi Sha'ib. Tell el-Mustah stands c. 1.75 km ENE of Tell Nimrin, both being located on the south side of the wadi. The tells of Mustah and Bleibil are in the foothills flanking the plain of Nimrin from the east, while Nimrin is further down the slope. Glueck describes Tell Nimrin in 1943 as being situated very close to the east of the Arab village of Shuneh (now Ash-Shunah al-Janubiyah or South Shuneh). About Tell Nimrin, see also Alexander Ahrens' Wadi Shuʿayb Archaeological Survey (2018).Alexander Ahrens
"From the Jordan Valley Lowlands to the Transjordanian Highlands: Preliminary Report of the Wadi Shuʿayb Archaeological Survey Project 2016, in: Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 59 (2018): 631-648"
/ref>

Hebrew Bible

It was assigned to 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. Biblical narrative After the conquest of ...

(). In the

Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...

it was said to have belonged formerly to the kingdom of

Sihon Sihon was an Amorite king mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, king of Ashtaroth, who refused to let the Israelites pass through his country. Chronicled in Numbers, he was defeated by Moses and the Israelites at the battle of Jahaz. He and Og were said ...

().

History

Persian period

In the 4th century BCE, the city was settled by

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

who had returned from the

Babylonian exile The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurre ...

and marked the furthest extent eastward of Jewish settlement in Transjordan.

Roman and Byzantine periods

In c. 65 CE, the village was the site of a fierce battle during the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...

under

Vespasian Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23 June 79) was Roman emperor from 69 to 79. The last emperor to reign in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolida ...

, which saw the defeat of the town's defenders. The non-combatants were exterminated, the able-bodied fled, the houses were ransacked by the soldiery, and the village set on fire.

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 ...

, ''

De Bello Judaico ''The Jewish War'' is a work of Jewish history written by Josephus, a first-century Roman-Jewish historian. It has been described by the biblical historian Steve Mason as "perhaps the most influential non-biblical text of Western history". C ...

'' (The Jewish War
4.7.4
(4.419)�
4.7.5
(4.426) The town is also mentioned in the

Mosaic of Rehob The Mosaic of Reḥob (, also known as the Tel Rehov inscription and the Baraita of the Boundaries), is a late 3rd–6th century Common Era, CE mosaic discovered in 1973. The mosaic, written in late Mishnaic Hebrew, describes the geography and ...

, which was laid sometimes between the late 3rd and the 6th/7th centuries CE.

References

Bibliography

* {{Coord, 31.909, 35.638, display=title

External links

Photos of Tall Nimrin
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 an ...

Populated places disestablished in the 1st century Former populated places in Jordan Archaeology of Jordan Ancient Jewish settlements of Transjordan Jews and Judaism in Jordan Hebrew Bible places Transjordan (region)