Misrephoth-Maim

Misrephoth-maim is a place in the territory of east Sidon, named at two points in Joshua. Its name carries the sense of burning water — a salt pit or hot spring — and it functions in the conquest narrative as a geographic limit, marking how far Israel's pursuit of the northern coalition reached and how far the unconquered Sidonian hill-country extended.

The Northern Rout

After the coalition under Jabin of Hazor gathered at the waters of Merom, the rout carried west and north toward the coast: "And Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they struck them, and chased them to great Sidon, and to Misrephoth-maim, and to the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they struck them, until they left them none remaining" (Josh 11:8). Misrephoth-maim sits between great Sidon and the eastward valley of Mizpeh, a fixed point on the chase-line.

The Sidonian Boundary

In the allotment instructions to Joshua, Misrephoth-maim reappears as the inland edge of the Sidonian zone still to be dispossessed: "all the inhabitants of the hill-country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, even all the Sidonians; I [by my Speech] will drive them out from before the sons of Israel: only allot it to Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded you" (Josh 13:6). The land between Lebanon and Misrephoth-maim — Sidonian hill-country — is to be assigned to Israel by inheritance even though it has not yet been taken.