EDREI (e'd're-i),(Heb. ed-reh'ee, mighty).
1. One of the metropolitan towns of the king dom of Bashan, beyond the Jordan. It was here that Og, the gigantic king of Bashan, was defeated by the Israelites, and lost his kingdom (Num. xxi :33-35; Deut. i :4 ; iii:I-3). Edrei afterwards belonged to eastern Manasseh ( Josh. xiii :31). The ruins of this city, still bearing the name Edr'a stand on a rocky promontory projecting from the southwest corner of Lejah. Others identify this place with the modern Der'at or Der'a, following Eusebius who mentions it in the Onomasticon as 24-25 Roman miles from Ashtaroth and about 27 miles east of Gadara. It was the seat of a bishop in the early ages of Christianity, and a bishop of Adraa sat in thecouncil of Seleucia (A.D.381),and of Chalcedon A. D. 451). Adraa was the name given to the place by the Greeks: by the Crusaders it was known as Adratum, and also as Civitas Bernardi de Stampis. Abulfeda calls it Adsraat. The ruins cover an extent of about two miles in circumference, the principal being an immense rec tangular building, with a double covered colon nade all around, and a cistern in the middle. This seems to have been originally a Christian church, and afterwards a mosque. Near the town, in the
hollow of the mountains, is a large reservoir cased with stone, near which are the ruins of a large building, with a cupola of light materials.
In one of the Tel el-Amarna letters (B. M. 43. io) it is called Astartu, and the writer of the despatch accuses a certain Biridasyi of taking the chariots out of it and giving them to the Bedouin. The neighboring city of Buzruna (Bostra) was at the time under a king of its own. W. Max Muller identifies the city of Autara in the Karnak List of Thothmes III (No. 91) with Edrei. Philologically the names would correspond, but the identification is impossible, as Autara is enu merated among the towns of southern Palestine Astartu or Ashtaroth is in an earlier part of the list (No. 28)." (A. H. Sayce, Hastings' Bib. Dict.) 2. A town of Naplitali ( Josh. xix :37), situated near Kedesh. There are some ruins two miles south of Kedesh, called Tell Khuraibeh. or "Tel, of the ruin," which may be the ancient Edrei, but the site is not fully known. Porter identifies it with Tell lattraibeh, near Kedesh; Conder, with later.