En-Gedi
En-gedi is a Dead-Sea-flank oasis on the western shore of the Salt Sea, exhibited in scripture as a Judahite holding, an older Amorite settlement once named Hazazon-tamar, the cave-pierced wilderness in which David hides from Saul, the staging-ground from which a trans-Jordan coalition threatens Jehoshaphat, and the vineyard country whose henna clusters supply a love-poem figure.
A City of Judah's Wilderness District
En-gedi enters the canon at its first mention as the terminal entry on Judah's wilderness-district roster of six cities: "and Nibshan, and the City of Salt, and En-gedi; six cities with their villages" (Jos 15:62). The placement among these Salt-Sea-flank holdings fixes En-gedi inside the allotted territory of Judah on the Dead-Sea side of the wilderness.
Hazazon-Tamar, the Older Name
The site bears an older name, Hazazon-tamar, attached to the Amorite clan that occupied it before Judah's settlement. On the return-march of the four-king coalition, "they returned, and came to En-mishpat (the same is Kadesh), and struck all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, who dwelt in Hazazon-tamar" (Gen 14:7). The locating-clause fixes the Amorite settlement-site that the coalition's sweep reaches.
The equivalence of the two names is made explicit centuries later by the Chronicler. When messengers report the trans-Dead-Sea invader-coalition to Jehoshaphat, they say, "There comes a great multitude against you from beyond the sea from Edom; and, look, they are in Hazazon-tamar (the same is En-gedi)" (2Ch 20:2). The parenthetical note supplies En-gedi as the contemporary Judahite name for what Genesis had called Hazazon-tamar.
David's Stronghold-Refuge
After Saul breaks off the Maon pursuit, David turns to En-gedi as a fortified Dead-Sea highland refuge: "And David went up from there, and dwelt in the strongholds of En-gedi" (1Sa 23:29). The site is exhibited as a refuge to which David retreats once the Philistine-raid diversion lifts Saul off his trail.
The intelligence reaches the king as soon as he is back from his Philistine-campaign: "when Saul had returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Look, David is in the wilderness of En-gedi" (1Sa 24:1). The wilderness-of-En-gedi phrase locates David in the Dead-Sea-flank tract now holding him.
The Cave by the Sheepcotes
The En-gedi wilderness is exhibited as a cave-country whose wayside sheepcotes shelter the encounter that opens 1 Samuel 24. "And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were dwelling in the innermost parts of the cave" (1Sa 24:3). The terrain is one in which pursuer and pursued share a single hollow — Saul at the mouth, David and his men in the innermost parts.
When the encounter ends with David sparing the king's life, the chapter closes by returning him to the same refuge: "And David swore to Saul. And Saul went home; but David and his men got up to the stronghold" (1Sa 24:22). The stronghold-language ties the closing motion back to the strongholds of En-gedi named in 1Sa 23:29.
The Coalition Staging-Ground
In Jehoshaphat's reign the same site appears not as a fugitive's refuge but as an invader-coalition's massing-point. The report is delivered with both names: "There comes a great multitude against you from beyond the sea from Edom; and, look, they are in Hazazon-tamar (the same is En-gedi)" (2Ch 20:2). The from-beyond-the-sea-from-Edom phrase fixes the trans-Dead-Sea Edomite approach-route, and En-gedi is exhibited as the wilderness-oasis at which the Moab-Ammon-Seir host has gathered against the Davidic kingdom.
The Vineyards of En-Gedi
The Song of Songs draws on En-gedi for its agricultural character. "My beloved is to me a cluster of henna-flowers In the vineyards of En-gedi" (SS 1:14). The site is named here as cultivated vineyard country yielding henna, and the henna-cluster grown there is the figure for what the beloved is to the speaker. The desert oasis that elsewhere shelters a fugitive and stages an invasion-host is here exhibited as a place of cultivated bloom.