Bozrah
Encyclopedia
- For the town in SyriaSyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, see BosraBosraBosra , also known as Bostra, Busrana, Bozrah, Bozra, Busra Eski Şam, Busra ash-Sham, and Nova Trajana Bostra, is an ancient city administratively belonging to the Daraa Governorate in southern Syria...
. For the town in Connecticut, see Bozrah, ConnecticutBozrah, ConnecticutBozrah is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,357 at the 2000 census. Bozrah contains three villages: Fitchville, the town center; Leffingwell, a crossroads on Route 82; and Gilman, a mill village along Fitchville Road....
.
Botsra, Botzrah, Bozrah is an ancient biblical city in south
South
South is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.South is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to east and west.By convention, the bottom side of a map is south....
ern modern-day Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, now Bouseira 20 Km to the south of Tafilah
Tafilah
At-Tafilah is a town with a population of 39,000 people in southern Jordan, located southwest of Amman. It is the capital of Tafilah Governorate. It is well-known for having green gardens which contain olive and fig trees, and grape-vines...
,between Tafilah
Tafilah
At-Tafilah is a town with a population of 39,000 people in southern Jordan, located southwest of Amman. It is the capital of Tafilah Governorate. It is well-known for having green gardens which contain olive and fig trees, and grape-vines...
(Tophel
Tophel
Tophel or Tofel was an Edomite town mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: "These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan — that is, in the Arabah — opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab." . It is identified as Tafilah in Jordan north to...
) and Shoubak
Shoubak
Shoubak is a municipality that lies at the north western edge of the Ma'an Governorate, bordered with Tafilah Governorate and Aqaba Governorate. It has a population of 12500...
.
History
Bozrah was the capital city of EdomEdom
Edom or Idumea was a historical region of the Southern Levant located south of Judea and the Dead Sea. It is mentioned in biblical records as a 1st millennium BC Iron Age kingdom of Edom, and in classical antiquity the cognate name Idumea was used to refer to a smaller area in the same region...
. According to the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
, the city was the homeland of Jacob's twin brother, Esau. Bozrah means "sheepfold" and was a pastoral city in Edom southeast of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
.
- "And these were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before the reigning of a king over the sons of Israel...And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah, from Bozrah, reigned in his place". (Gen 36:31-33)
The prophets Amos
Amos (prophet)
Amos is a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Amos. Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a sheep herder and a sycamore fig farmer. Amos' prior professions and his claim "I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet" indicate that Amos was not from the school of prophets,...
and Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
predicted Bozrah's destruction.
- "But I will send a fire against Teman, and it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah". (Amos 1:12)
According to Isaiah 63:1-6, the Lord will come from Edom (modern-day Jordan) and Bozrah on the day of vengeance and the year of redemption (cf. Revelation 19:13).
According to one Christian interpretation of Micah 2:12-13, Bozrah, (or a place the Bible cryptically refers to as Bozrah), will also be the scene of a magnificent "break-out" of God's covenant people. According to this interpretation the deliverance will come at an Edomite controlled place of exile and incarceration in the End times
End times
The end time, end times, or end of days is a time period described in the eschatological writings in the three Abrahamic religions and in doomsday scenarios in various other non-Abrahamic religions...
. This epic event referred to in Micah 2:12-13 has been referred to by Dr G Finley as "the Bozrah deliverance". Bozrah is in the Hebrew, but most translators render it as "fold" - sheep in the fold. This "break-out" could be tied to Zechariah 14:1-5, when Yahweh fights against the nations, stands on the Mount of Olives (east of Jerusalem), and splits the Mount in two as a valley, so that the remnant of Israel trapped in Jerusalem can escape those who would kill them. If so, Micah 2:12-13 would not relate to the locale of Bozrah.
The notion of a remnant in Jerusalem fleeing through a split Mount of Olives derives from the Masoretic reading of Zechariah 14:5. The Septuagint (LXX) states in Zechariah 14:5 that a valley will be blocked up as it was blocked up during the earthquake during King Uzziah's reign. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus mentions in Antiquities of the Jews that the valley in the area of the King's Gardens was blocked up by landslide rubble during Uzziah's earthquake. Israeli geologist's Wachs and Levitte identified the remnant of a large landslide on the Mount of Olives directly adjacent to this area. Based on geographic and linguistic evidence, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, a 19th-century linguist and archeologist in Palestine, postulated that the valley directly adjacent to this landslide is Azal
Azal (Bible)
Azal , or Azel, is the location mentioned in the Book of Zechariah 14:5 in bibles that use the Hebrew Masoretic Text as the source for this verse...
, the location mentioned in Zechariah 14:5 to which the remnant in Jerusalem is to supposedly flee. This location accords with the LXX reading of Zechariah 14:5 which states that the valley will be blocked up as far as Azal. If Clermont-Ganneau is correct, the notion of people fleeing east through the Mount of Olives to Azal is impossible because the valley he identified (which is now known as Wady Yasul in Arabic, and Nahal Etzel in Hebrew) lies south of both Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.