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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Mamre
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An ancient Amorite. , "the plain (rather the oaks or terebinths) of Mamre"; ; , brother of Eshcol, friend and ally of Abraham. The chieftain had planted the terebinths, or was associated with them as his tenting place; so "the oak of Deborah" (). Mamre was less than a mile from Hebron (Josephus, B. J. 4:9, section 7); but Robinson makes it two Roman miles off, now the hill er Rameh.
Constantine, to suppress the superstitions veneration to the terebinths, erected a basilica or church on the spot. That it was on an elevation appears from the record that Machpelah faces it (-19; ). Abram resided under the oak grove shade in the interval between his stay at Bethel and at Beersheba (; ; ; ). If Machpelah be on the N.E. side of the Hebron valley, then Mamre as "facing it" must have been on the opposite slope, where the governor's house now is. (See HEBRON.)