HOR (perhaps originally Har «mountain»). - A mountain (Num. 20:22, 23, 25, 27; 21:4; Deut. 32:50) of southern Palestine on the border with Edom, between Kadesh (v.) and Salmonah, and a stopping place of the Exodus. It was designated by God for the death and burial of Aaron (v.), together with the investiture of his son Eleazar as high priest. In its vicinity Hormah must have been situated, where the herem (v.) was applied against the Canaanite king Arad. After setting out from H., the murmuring Israelites were infested by the "fiery" serpents, and Moses erected the bronze serpent (Num. 21).

The location of H. on Gebel Hārūn (the mountain of Aaron), 1,330 m. high, halfway between the Dead Sea and 'Aqabah, is the oldest (cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Jud., IV, 4, 7; Eusebius, Onom., 176) and is reported by various itineraries, but it rests on the (very uncertain) identification of Kadesh with Petra. Others place it on el-Gebel ("the mountain"), an isolated mountain northeast of Beersheba. It seems more likely to trace it to a mountain of the Gebel Mađejrah, northeast of 'Abdeh, since Mađejrah may correspond to Mōsērāfōth, the mountain where, according to Deut. 10:5, Aaron died. It is not far from Kadesh; moreover, 17 km. from this locality flows the Wādī Hārūnijeh (which descends from Gebel el Hamrah, 785 m.), which echoes the name of Aaron.

In Num. 34:7-9 there is mention of a Hār hā-hār, which some translate as "the peak or the height of the mountain" (Vulg. "mons altissimus"). Others, however, find in it a second Mount H. It marked the northern border of the Promised Land (Mediterranean, H., Emath, Sedada, Zephrona, Hasar, Enan). It is omitted in Ezek. 47:15-17. Its identification is much disputed: Amanus (Targum of Jerusalem and of pseudo-Jonathan), Lebanon (Szczepanski), Hīrbet Hūr or Hīrbet Hūrah east and west of the Nahr el-Qāsimijeh, Gebel eš-Šaqif (570 m.; Reland, Van Kasteren, Legendre), Gebel 'Akkār east of Tripoli (Abel).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: M.-J. Lagrange, Le Sinai biblique, in Revue bibl., 8 (1899), pp. 376-78; id., L'itinéraire des Israélites du pays de Gessen aux bords du Jourdain, ibid., 9 (1900), pp. 280-82; R. Brünnow - A. v. Domaszewski, Die Provinz Arabia, I, Strasbourg 1904-1909, p. 419 f.; B. Ubach, Le sacrifice de Nōby Haroun an Sinai, in Revue bibl., 42 (1933), pp. 79-81. F.-M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine, I, Paris 1933, pp. 386-89; II, ibid. 1938, p. 215.

Bonaventura Marini

@incollection{ec6_hor_forse_in_origine_har_monte, author = {Mariani, Bonaventura}, title = {Hor (Forse in Origine Har «Monte»)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1480}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/hor-forse-in-origine-har-monte} }

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Hor (perhaps originally Har «mountain»)

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