BETH-HORON ("the place of the hollow way"), the name of two neighbouring villages, upper and lower Beth-horon, on the ascent from the coast plain of Palestine to the high tableland of Benjamin, which was until the 16th century the high road from Jerusalem to the sea. The two towns thus played a conspicuous part in Israelitish military history (see Josh. x. 1 o; I. Sam. xiii. 18; I. Ki. ix. 17; I. Macc. iii. 13-24, vii. 39 sqq., ix. 5o). Josephus (Bell..1ud. ii. 19) tells of the rout of a Roman army under Cestius Gallus in A.D. 66. The Talmud states that many rabbis were born in the place. It is now represented by Beit 'Ur-el-fokd and Beit 'Ur-et-talitd, around which much fighting took place in the attacks on Jerusalem, November to December 1917.
See T. Oelgarte, "Die Bethhoronstrasse," Palestina Jahrbuch, 73 sqq.
(1918).