EN-DOR

[spring of generation].

A plains city located in the territory of Issachar but assigned to Manasseh. The Canaanites there were not entirely dispossessed but came under forced labor. (Josh. 17:11-13) En-dor is usually identified with the modern site of the same name, about midway between Megiddo and the southern end of the Sea of Galilee.

At Psalm 83:9, 10, En-dor is connected with Jehovah’s victory over Sisera. While not mentioned in the battle account at Judges chapters four and five, it evidently lay only a few miles S of Mount Tabor, from which Barak’s army descended. (Judg. 4:6, 12) It was also in the general region of Taanach and Megiddo and the torrent valley of Kishon, where Sisera’s forces were miraculously disrupted. (Josh. 17:11; Judg. 5:19) So, some feature of the battle evidently extended as far as En-dor, and the psalmist, well acquainted with the historical and geographical details, could speak of En-dor as the place where many of the fleeing Canaanites were annihilated.—Ps. 83:10.

En-dor is best known as the place where King Saul went to consult a “mistress of spirit mediumship,” shortly before Israel’s defeat at the hands of the Philistines.—1 Sam. 28:7; 31:1-13.