Place
Shur
Named in 6 verses across 3 books, first in Genesis 16:7.
In the Bible
All 3 verses in Genesis, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 16:7
Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
- Genesis 20:1
Now Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar,
- Genesis 25:18
Ishmael’s descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which is near the border of Egypt as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.
Events here
Events the dataset sets at Shur. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1491 BCWilderness Wanderings
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
An enclosure; a wall, a part, probably, of the Arabian desert, on the north-eastern border of Egypt, giving its name to a wilderness extending from Egypt toward Philistia (Gen. 16:7; 20:1; 25:18; Ex. 15:22). The name was probably given to it from the wall (or shur) which the Egyptians built to defend their frontier on the north-east from the desert tribes. This wall or line of fortifications extended from Pelusium to Heliopolis.