Hor (mountain), Mount.
1. The mountain on which Aaron died. Num. 20:25, 27. It was “on the boundary line,” Num. 20:23, or “at the edge,” ch. 33:37, of the land of Edom. It was the halting-place of the people next after Kadesh, ch. 20:22; 33:37, and they quitted it for Zalmonah, ch. 33:41, in the road to the Red Sea, ch. 21:4. It was during the encampment at Kadesh that Aaron was gathered to his fathers. Mount Hor is situated on the eastern side of the great valley of the Arabah, the highest and most conspicuous of the whole range of the sandstone mountains of Edom, having close beneath it on its eastern side the mysterious city of Petra. It is now the Jebel Nebi-Harûn, “the mountain of the prophet Aaron.” Its height is 4800 feet above the Mediterranean; that is to say, about 1700 feet above the town of Petra, 4000 above the level of the Arabah, and more than 6000 above the Dead Sea. The mountain is marked far and near by its double top, which rises like a huge castellated building from a lower base, and is surmounted by a circular dome of the tomb of Aaron, a distinct white spot on the dark red surface of the mountain. The chief interest of Mount Hor consists in the prospect from its summit, the last view of Aaron—that view which was to him what Pisgah was to his brother.
2. A mountain, entirely distinct from the preceding, named in Num. 34:7, 8 only, as one of the marks of the northern boundary of the land which the children of Israel were about to conquer. This Mount Hor is the great chain of Lebanon itself.