PETHOR ():

By: Emil G. Hirsch, Schulim Ochser

Native city of Balaam. In Num. xxii. 5 it is called the city "by the river," and in Deut. xxiii. 4 the city "in Aram Naharaim" (A. V. "Mesopotamia"). It was situated north-northeast of Palestine, and was most probably identical with the Hittite Pitru, which was captured by Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.): "I crossed the Euphrates, and took the city Ana-ashurutir-aṣbat on the other side of the Euphrates on the Sagur, which the Hittites call Pitru" (Schrader, "K. B." i. 133, lines 37-40; 173, lines 85-86).

Bibliography:

Schrader, K. A. T. 2d ed., pp. 155 et seq.:
Dillmann, Commentary on Numbers (xxii. 5).

E. G. H. S. O.