DOTHAIN. - A city north of Sichem (Gen. 37, 12-17) and Samaria (II Reg. 6, 13), on a plain opposite Esdrelon (Iud. 4, 6; 7, 3) and near the pass leading to the land of Judah. There Joseph, son of Jacob, was thrown by his brothers into a cistern and then sold to Ishmaelite merchants; there the army of Benadad, struck with blindness at Elisha’s prayer, was led by the prophet into the center of Samaria.
Eusebius (Onom., 76, 13) places the city 12 miles north of Sebaste (Samaria). It seems no longer to have existed in the thirteenth century, since pilgrims sought its site near the lake of Tiberias; but in 1855 it was identified in the landscape 18 km north of Sebaste, on the road toward Carmel, entirely isolated from the pleasant surrounding valley and 25–30 m. high, still bearing the name Tell Dō-jān. The surroundings of the hill, crowned with sacred trees and wddi, are strewn with ancient cisterns, and the fertility of the soil, thanks to two abundant springs, still provides the finest pastures today. The Tell lies precisely at km. 100 on the paved Jerusalem-Nazareth road.