Hebrew word · H6604

פְּתוֹר

mipetor

Pethor

Nahar means 'river, stream'. With the article and no name, hannahar, 'the River', is the standard Hebrew way of saying the Euphrates (Gen 31:21; Exod 23:31; Josh 24:2–3). upper Mesopotamia/northern Syria).

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Pethor = "soothsayer"

a town of Mesopotamia and the home of Balaam; located on a river

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Numbers 22:5

Range of meaning

Nahar means 'river, stream'. With the article and no name, hannahar, 'the River', is the standard Hebrew way of saying the Euphrates (Gen 31:21; Exod 23:31; Josh 24:2–3). Petor is a place name that occurs only in connection with Balaam (here and Deut 23:4[5], which places it in 'Aram-naharaim', 'Aram of the two rivers', i.e. upper Mesopotamia/northern Syria).

Against the English

KJV and WEB keep 'the River' / 'the river', and a modern reader may not know which river is meant. BSB and NIV say 'Euphrates' outright, which is accurate to the idiom but hides that the Hebrew just says 'the River'.

How it drifted

Not drift so much as a lost convention: an Israelite heard 'the River' as the Euphrates the way someone in Egypt hears 'the River' as the Nile.

Used elsewhere in the period

Assyrian royal inscriptions of Shalmaneser III (9th century BC) name a town Pitru on the Sajur river, a western tributary of the Euphrates near Carchemish. The Assyrians called it Ana-Aššur-utēr-aṣbat after taking it from the Aramean kingdom of Bit-Adini. Egyptian topographical lists (Thutmose III) are also often cited for a Pdr. Most commentators accept this identification (Milgrom, Levine, Ashley).

Where it appears

Numbers · 1

  1. Numbers 22:5 פְּ֠תוֹרָה Pethor towards

    he sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor at Pethor, which is by the Euphrates in the land of his people. “Behold, a people has come out of Egypt,” said Balak. “They cover the face of the land and have settled next to me.

    Here: 'To Pethor'. The ending -ah means 'toward', so this is where the envoys went. Most scholars identify it with Pitru, a town on the Sajur river near where it joins the Euphrates, south of Carchemish. Assyrian texts name the town.

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 23:4 מִפְּת֛וֹר from Pethor

    For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you.

    Here: 'From Pethor', a town 'by the River' (Numbers 22:5). It is usually identified with Pitru near Carchemish on the upper Euphrates. The point is that he came from very far away.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.