ARAD

(Aʹrad) [fugitive].

1. One of the headmen of the tribe of Benjamin who at one time lived in Jerusalem.—1 Chron. 8:15, 28.

2. A city on the southern border of Canaan, whose king attacked Israel as they approached Canaan. The Israelites devoted the district to destruction and called it “Hormah,” meaning “ban.” (Num. 21:1-3; 33:40) They did not then settle there, however, and evidently some of the inhabitants escaped destruction. Hence, the king of Arad is included in the list of thirty-one kings later vanquished in Joshua’s whirlwind campaign. (Josh. 12:14) The Kenites later settled in the wilderness area to the S of Arad.—Judg. 1:16.

The site is identified with Tell ʽArad, one of the most imposing mounds in the Negeb region. It lies on a somewhat rolling plain about twenty-two and a half miles (36 kilometers) E-NE of Beer-sheba. It is one of the few sites in the Negeb that have retained their same names for the past three thousand years.