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MEROM, WATERS OF

(Merʹom) [High (Exalted) Place].

It was here that the confederate Canaanite forces under Jabin the king of Hazor encamped before being defeated by Joshua. Probably for the first time the Israelites faced Canaanites equipped with horses and chariots, as may be inferred from Joshua’s receiving divine instructions then about burning the chariots and hamstringing the horses.​—Jos 11:1-9.

As explained by Y. Aharoni, “The ‘waters of Merom’ must be the water source of the city Merom beside which the Canaanite forces assembled. Merom is known both from second-millennium Egyptian sources . . . and from Tiglath-pileser III’s account of his expedition to Galilee . . . It is generally accepted to identify Merom with Meirun at the foot of Jebel Jarmaq, but in the absence of a suitable tell at this site, an identification a bit farther north is preferable. Its name is possibly preserved in Jebel Marun and Marun er-Ras, and we may consider its identification with Tell el-Khirbeh, one of the large Canaanite tells in the southern part of Canaanite Upper Galilee. From Hazor both of the suggested identifications are about seven to eight miles as the crow flies.”​—The Land of the Bible, translated and edited by A. Rainey, 1979, pp. 225, 226.