Shaphir

In Bible versions:

Shaphir: NET AVS NIV NRSV NASB TEV

a town somewhere in the western lowlands of Judah

Google Maps: Shaphir (31° 44´, 34° 41´)

Hebrew

Strongs #08208: rypv Shaphiyr

Saphir = "fair"

1) a place in Judah; site unknown

8208 Shaphiyr shaf-eer'

from 8231; beautiful; Shaphir, a place in
Palestine:-Saphir.
see HEBREW for 08231

Shaphir [NAVE]

SHAPHIR
See: Saphir.

SHAPHIR [ISBE]

SHAPHIR - sha'-fer (shaphir, "glittering"; kalos; the King James Version Saphir): One of a group of towns mentioned in Mic 1:10-15. From the association with Gath, Achzib (of Judah) and Mareshah, it would seem that the places mentioned were in Southwestern Palestine. According to Eusebius, in Onomasticon, there was a Sapheir, "in the hill country" (from a confusion with Shamir (Josh 15:48), where Septuagint A has Sapheir) between Eleutheropolis and Ascalon. The name probably survives in that of three villages called es-Suafir, in the plain, some 3 1/2 miles Southeast of Ashdod (PEF, II, 413, Sh XV). Cheyne (EB, col. 4282) suggests the white "glittering" hill Tell ec-Cafi, at the entrance to the Wady ec-Sunt, which was known to the Crusaders as Blanchegarde, but this site seems a more probable one for GATH (which see).

E. W. G. Masterman