HAPHARAIM

HAPHARAIM (Heb. חֲפָרַיִם), town in the territory of Issachar (Josh. 19:19), located between Chesulloth and Shunem on one side and Shion and Anaharath on the other. A place with the same name is mentioned in the Mishnah (Men. 8:1) as the source of fine wheat supplied to the Second Temple. Eusebius (Onom. 28:26) identified it with Aphraia, 6 mi. (10 km.) north of Legio (al-Lajjūn near Megiddo), which may point to the vicinity of Afulah. Recent scholars, relying on the spelling Afarayim in talmudic literature (Tosef., Men. 9:2; TB, Men. 83b), have proposed its identification with ophrah of Gideon (Judg. 6:11), and perhaps the fr in the list of Thutmose III. The site of Hapharaim is possibly at al-Tayyiba in the hills north of the Jezreel Valley. Another suggested identification, with Khirbat al-Farriyya near Megiddo, is less probable. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Dalman, Sacred Sites and Ways (1935), 219; Abel, Geog, 2 (1938), 343, 402; Albright, in: JBL, 58 (1939), 183; M. Noth, Das Buch Josua (19533), 117; EM, S.V. (Michael Avi-Yonah)