SHAPHIR

(Shaʹphir) [beautiful].

A place, evidently in Judah, the inhabitants of which were included in Micah’s prophecy of judgment due to come upon Judah and Jerusalem. (Mic. 1:11) In this section of the prophecy, Micah makes a frequent play on words in his usage of the place-names. (See BETH-EZEL.) The present tentative identification of Shaphir is with Khirbet el-Kom, a site on a hill dominating the Wadi es-Saffar (Arabic form of Shaphir), about nine miles (15 kilometers) W of Hebron.