endor Summary and Overview

fountain of Dor; i.e., "of the age", a place in the territory of Issachar (Josh. 17:11) near the scene of the great victory which was gained by Deborah and Barak over Sisera and Jabin (compare Ps. 83:9, 10). To Endor, Saul resorted to consult one reputed to be a witch on the eve of his last engagement with the Philistines (1 Sam. 28:7). It is identified with the modern village of Endur, "a dirty hamlet of some twenty houses, or rather huts, most of them falling to ruin," on the northern slope of Little Hermon, about 7 miles from Jezreel.

("the spring of Dor".) In Issachar, yet Manasseh's possession. Here it was that Sisera and Jabin perished (Psalm 83:9-10). Endor is not mentioned in Judges 4 as the scene of the Canaanites' overthrow; but Taanach and Megiddo are mentioned with Endor in Joshua 17:11, and in Judges 4 they are represented as the scene of the battle with Sisera's host. Endor being near would naturally be the scene of many "perishing"; an undesigned coincidence between the psalm and the independent history, and so confirming both. The good omen associated with the place may have lured Saul to his fatal visit to the witch (1 Samuel 28:7). Endur is still a village on the slope of a mountain to the N. of jebel Duhy, "the little Hermon." Caves abound there, in one of which probably the incantation took place; eight miles, over rugged ground, from the Gilboa heights; so that Saul must have passed the Philistine camp on his way from his own army to the witch, and the way the unhappy king crept round in the darkness may be traced step by step.