Moreh

Two distinct places carry the name Moreh in the Hebrew scriptures: a plain near Shechem associated with Abram's first stop in Canaan, and a hill on the plain of Jezreel where the Midianites mustered against Gideon.

The Oak of Moreh near Shechem

Abram's entry into the land of promise reaches its first landmark at Moreh: "And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen 12:6). The same site is invoked later as a geographic anchor for Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal — "(Are they not beyond the Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah, across from Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?)" (Deut 11:30). Moreh thus marks a fixed location near Shechem, used to orient later generations to the place where the patriarchal promise was first received.

The Hill of Moreh in the Valley of Jezreel

A second Moreh names a hill on the plain of Jezreel. When Gideon's force assembled, "the camp of Midian was on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley" (Judg 7:1). The scale of that camp is described in the next account of the same field: "And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude" (Judg 7:12). The hill names the staging ground for the enemy host that Gideon's three hundred would rout.