PETHOR ():

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.
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