HOR (perhaps originally meaning “mountain”). — A mountain (Num. 20:22, 23, 25, 27; 21:4; Deut. 32:50) in southern Palestine on the border with Edom, between Kadesh (v.) and Salmon, and a stopping-place during the Exodus. It was designated by God as the place of Aaron’s death and burial and of the investiture of his son Eleazar as high priest. Nearby was to be Hormah, where the *herem* (v.) was applied against the Canaanite king Arad. After leaving H., the murmuring Israelites were afflicted with “fiery” serpents, and Moses set up the bronze serpent (Num. 21).
The identification of H. with Jebel Hārūn (Mountain of Aaron), 1,330 m high, midway between the Dead Sea and ‘Aqabah, is the oldest (cf. Flavius Josephus, *Antiquitates Judaicae*, IV, 4, 7; Eusebius, *Onomasticon*, 176) and is supported by various itineraries, but rests on the (very uncertain) identification of Kadesh with Petra. Others place it at Jebel (the mountain), an isolated height northeast of Beersheba. More probably it should be sought in a mountain of Jebel Majayrah, northeast of ‘Abdeh, since Majayrah may correspond to Mount Moserah (Deut. 10:5), where Aaron died. It is not far from Kadesh; moreover, 17 km from this site flows the Wādi Hārūniyeh (descending from Jebel el-Ḥamrāh, 785 m), which echoes the name of Aaron.
In Num. 34:7-9 mention is made of a *Hōr hā-hār*, which some translate “the summit or height of the mountain” (Vulgate: *mons altissimus*). Others, however, see here a second Mount H. It marked the northern boundary of the Promised Land (Mediterranean, H., Emath, Sedada, Zephrona, Hasar, Enan). It is omitted in Ezek. 47:15-17. The identification is much disputed: Amanus (Jerusalem and Pseudo-Jonathan Targums), Lebanon (Szczepanski), Khirbet Hūr or Khirbet Hūrah on the east and west of the Nahr el-Qāsimīyeh, Jebel es-Saqīf (570 m; Reland, Van Kasteren, Legendre), Jebel ‘Akkār east of Tripoli (Abel).