Mount Hor in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

1. The mount in which Aaron died (Numbers 20:22-23; Numbers 20:25-28). An archaic form of har, "mountain." The only instance in which the proper name comes first, "Hor the mountain," the mount upon the mountain. It "rises like a huge castellated building from a lower base" (Stanley, Sinai and Israel, 86). Now Jebel Harun" by the coast (or 'edge') of the land of Edom" (Numbers 33:37-38). On the E. side of the Arabah, close to Petra. The white chalk summit rises on a dark red sandstone bore rock, 5,300 feet above the Mediterranean. On the northernmost of its two summits is shown a square building with dome, called the tomb of Aaron. A flight of steps cut in the rock leads up a precipice to it. The roof is decorated with ostrich shells and such like ornaments. It is an ordinary Moslem weh; over the door is an inscription stating that the building was restored by Es Shimani, son of Mohammed Calain, sultan of Egypt, by his father's orders, in the year 739 of the Hegira; square almost, 28 ft. by 33 ft., having two chambers one above the other. The host encamped in the Arabah below at Moseroth (Numbers 33:30), or Mosera (Deuteronomy 10:6). (See AARON.) His death resembled Moses' in being on a mountain, but differed from it in being in the presence of Moses and Eleazar on the mount to which they ascended "in the sight of all the congregation." Moses' death was in solitude, but with Gilead's heights, and Benjamin's hills, and the rich Jordan valley in view; whereas Aaron's last looks rested on rugged Edom, and chalky mount Seir, and the red sandstone rocks round Petra, and the dreary Arabah. 2. The name Hor is applied to the whole western crest of Lebanon, 80 miles long from the E. of Sidon to the entering in of Hamath (Kalat el Husn close to Hums, i.e. ancient Hamath); the northern boundary appointed to Israel (Numbers 34:8).