Debir

1. A town in the mountains of Judah, (Joshua 15:49) one of a group of eleven cities to the west of Hebron. The earlier name of Debir was Kirjath-sepher, "city of book," (Joshua 15:15; Judges 1:11) and Kirjath-sannah, "city of palm." (Joshua 15:49) It was one of the cities given with their "suburbs" to the priests. (Joshua 21:15; 1 Chronicles 6:58) Debir has not been discovered with certainty in modern times; but about three miles to the west of Hebron is a deep and secluded valley called the Wady Nunkur , enclosed on the north by hills, of which one bears a name certainly suggestive of Debir--Dewir-ban.
2. A place on the north boundary of Judah, near the "valley of Achor." (Joshua 15:7) A Wady Dabor is marked in Van Deuteronomy Velde’s map as close to the south of Neby Musa , at the northwest corner of the Dead Sea.
3. The "border of Debir" is named as forming part of the boundary of Gad, (Joshua 13:26) and as apparently not far from Mahanaim.

de'-ber (debhir; Dabeir): "And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir, and fought against it: and he took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword .... he left none remaining" (Jos 10:38,39). In Jos 15:15-17 and Jud 1:11-13 is an account of how Othniel captured Debir, which "beforetime was Kiriath-sepher," and won thereby the hand of Achsah, Caleb's daughter. In Jos 15:49 Debir is called Kiriath-sannah. It had once been inhabited by the Anakim (Jos 11:21). It was a Levitical city (Jos 21:15; 1Ch 6:58).

1. The Meaning of the Name:

(1) Debir is usually accepted as meaning "back," but this is doubtful; the word debhir is used to denote the "holy of holies" (1Ki 6:5). According to Sayce (HDB), "the city must have been a sacred one with a well-known temple." Kiriath-sepher is translated "town of books," and Sayce and others consider that in all probability there was a great storehouse of clay tablets here; perhaps the name may have been qiryath copher, "town of scribes." Kiriath-sannah (Jos 15:49) is probably a corruption of Kiriath-sepher; the Septuagint has here as in references to the latter polis grammaton, "town of books."

2. The Site:

Unfortunately this site, important even if the speculations about the books are doubtful, is still a matter of uncertainty. Edh-Dhaheriyeh, some 11 miles Southwest of Hebron, has a good deal of support. It was unquestionably a site of importance in ancient times as the meeting-place of several roads; it is in the Negeb (compare Jud 1:15), in the neighborhood of the probable site of Anab (Jos 11:21; 15:50); it is a dry site, but there are "upper" and "lower" springs about 6 1/2 miles to the North. A more thorough examination of the site than has as yet been undertaken might produce added proofs in favor of this identification. No other suggestion has any great probability. See PEF, III, 402; PEFS, 1875.

(2) Debir, on the border between Judah and Benjamin (Jos 15:7), must have been somewhere East of Jerusalem not far from the modern Jericho road. Thoghgret edition Debr, "the pass of the rear," half a mile Southwest of the Tal`at edition Dumm (see ADUMMIM), close to the so-called, "Inn of the Good Samaritan," may be an echo of the name which has lingered in the neighborhood. Many authorities consider that there is no place-name in this reference at all, the text being corrupt.

(3) Debir the Revised Version, margin, Lidebir (Jos 13:26), a town on the border of Gad, near Mahanaim; Ibdar, South of the Yarmuk has been suggested. May be identical with Lo-debar (2Sa 9:4).

E. W. G. Masterman