ARAD
(Aʹrad).
1. One of the headmen of the tribe of Benjamin who at one time lived in Jerusalem.—1Ch 8:15, 28.
2. A city on the southern border of Canaan, whose king attacked Israel as they approached Canaan. The Israelites devoted the district to destruction and called it “Hormah,” meaning “A Devoting to Destruction.” (Nu 21:1-3; 33:40) They did not then settle there, however, and evidently some of the inhabitants escaped destruction. Hence, the king of Arad is included in the list of 31 kings later vanquished in Joshua’s whirlwind campaign. (Jos 12:14) The Kenites later settled in the wilderness area to the S of Arad.—Jg 1:16.
Ruins of a fortress at Tel ʽArad. Among the Hebrew ostraca found near here is one that mentions “the house of Jehovah”
Israelite Arad is generally identified with Tel ʽArad, one of the most imposing mounds in the Negeb region. It lies on a somewhat rolling plain about 28 km (17 mi) E of Beer-sheba. Excavations at Tel ʽArad uncovered some 200 ostraca, about half of them in Hebrew and the rest in Aramaic. One such Hebrew potsherd, said to be from the second half of the seventh century B.C.E., reads: “To my lord Eliashib: May Jehovah ask for your peace. . . . He dwells in the house of Jehovah.”—PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 325.
Because of the absence of late Canaanite remains at Tel ʽArad, Y. Aharoni suggests that Canaanite Arad was located at Tell el-Milh (Tel Malhata), 12 km (7 mi) SW of Tel ʽArad.