Tavor (Mount Tabor)

תבור


Now known as Jebel-et-Tur, it stands in the Yizri-El (Jezreel) Valley (עֵמֶק יִזרְעֶאל), usually called Esdraelon in English translations, about seven miles east of Nazareth, and provided a key point on the border between Yisaschar and Zevulun (cf Joshua 19:22).

Judges 4 tells the story of Devorah and Barak's defeat of Siys-Ra (סִיסְרָא - Sisera), who led the army of Yavin (יָבִין - Jabin), the king of Chatsor (Hazor) - though the text actually calls him the "king of Kena'an", and the existence of such a national king is one of the details that suggests that the Book of Judges belongs to a period of history concurrent with the patriarchs, or even previous to them, rather than several hundred years later, as the order of the Tanach prefers. Joshua 19:12 mentions a town named Ha Devarat (הַדָּֽבְרַ֖ת) on the slopes of Mount Tavor (today's Deburich), which was probably the shrine or oracle of the bee-goddess Devorah, and therefore the likely starting point for Barak's descent from the mountain to rout Siys-Ra; we should read the tale as being Barak visiting the oracle of Devorah, to obtain her "assent" and support, and then going out to battle, rather than the Joan of Arc legend of a woman leading the army.

Mount Tavor's significance as a "holy" mountain is affirmed in Jeremiah 46:18; I have placed the word "holy" in quotation marks because, if it was a shrine to the bee-goddess, then it would have been denegrated as heathen by the later prophets, as indeed it was in Hosea 5. And it would also be the likely site of Alon Bachot, the tumulus below the weeping oak where Rivka's "wet-nurse" Devorah was buried in Genesis 35:8; we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that it was here, but I am intrigued to see that Easton's Bible Dictionary makes the supposition in its entry for Mount Tabor (Easton also rejects Tavor as the site of the Transfiguration - see below).

Judges 8 tells how Gid'on (Gideon) captured the kings of Midyan, Zevach (זֶבַח) and Tsalmun'a (וְצַלְמֻנָּע) who had murdered his brothers.

Mount Tavor's other significant appearance is in Mark 9, retold in Matthew 17:1, a somewhat unlikely tale known as the "Transfiguration", which is echoed in a similar incident in Muhammad's life, the Lailat al Miraj, spoken of in Sura 17.

See also 1 Samuel 10:3, 1 Chronicles 6:77

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