Atlas  Shaphir and surrounding region Maps Created using Biblemapper 3.0 Additional data from OpenBible.info You are free to use up to 50 Biblos coprighted maps (small or large) for your website or presentation. Please credit Biblos.com. Occurrences Micah 1:11 Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won't come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection.Encyclopedia SHAPHIRsha'-fer (shaphir, "glittering"; kalos; the King James Version Saphir): One of a group of towns mentioned in Micah 1:10-15. From the association with Gath, Achzib (of Judah) and Mareshah, it would seem that the places mentioned were in Southwestern Palestine. According to Eusebius, in Onomasticon, there was a Sapheir, "in the hill country" (from a confusion with Shamir (Joshua 15:48), where Septuagint A has Sapheir) between Eleutheropolis and Ascalon. The name probably survives in that of three villages called es-Suafir, in the plain, some 3 1/2 miles Southeast of Ashdod (PEF, II, 413, Sh XV). Cheyne (EB, col. 4282) suggests the white "glittering" hill Tell ec-Cafi, at the entrance to the Wady ec-Sunt, which was known to the Crusaders as Blanchegarde, but this site seems a more probable one for GATH (which see). SAPH'IR, probably now es Sawafir, 7 ms. from the Mediterranean coast, in Palestine, 31 ms., a little s. of w., from Jerusalem, 9 1/2 ms. n.e. from Ascalon. Mich. 1:11 is the only reference. Strong's Hebrew H8208: Shaphir"beauty," a place perhaps in Philistia |
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