I HAVOTH-JAIR Itn; Sept. 'Erat9teui I 'hap ; Alex. 'Iadp, and Kthi.tas, and Aic.60 ; Vulg.
Havoth-yair, id est, villas 7air ; and oppida the name given to a group of villages' or towns' in Gilead, from the fact of their having been taken by Jair a descendant of Manasseh. The word Havoth, nm, is the plural of mn, and is probably derived from the Arabic root ...ft.., to collect.' It signifies a collection of dwellings of any kind, whether tents or houses. The very same places which are called Havoth in Num. xxxii. 41, are termed Dny, cities,' in z Kings iv. 1,3 ; conse quently we cannot receive the interpretation of some recent writers, who say they were not cities,' but Bedouin villages of tents' (Stanley, S. a;zd P., 321 and 5 t4). The origin of the appellation is thus explained in Num. xxxii. 40, 41 : Moses gave Gilead unto Machir, the son of Manasseh ; and he dwelt therein. And 7air, the son of Manasseh, went and took the small towns (ron) thereof, and called them Havoth-jair.' Another Jair, apparently a descendant of the former, was one of Israel's famous judges ; and it is said of him, He had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had Milt), cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead' (Judg. x. 3, 4). This appears to be only a new application of an old name. The otiginal number of the towns conquered by Jair was twenty-three, as we read in Chron. 22
Segub begat Jair, who had three and twenty cities in the land of Gilead.' The number was subsequently increased like the Dccapolis.
The ancient province of Gilead was bounded on the north by the river Hieromax, which separated it from Bashan (GILEAD) ; and that portion of it which fell to the lot of the half tribe of l)lanasseh lay north of the Jabbok (Num. xxxii. 33 ; Deut. iii. 12, 13). Consequently those towns of Gilead which were called Havoth-jair must have been situated in the mountainous district between Maha naim and the Hieromax (Josh. xxi. 38 ; xiii. 24 3o).
Considerable confusion has been caused in the geography of this region by confounding the Havoth-jair of Gilead with Bashan-havoth-jair. The following passag,es prove that they were entirely distinct, and even far apart—Josh. xiii. 3o ; Kings iv. 13 ; Chron. ii. 22, 23. Eu sebius recog,nises the distinction ; but Jerome either mistakes his meaning, or, more probably, had another idea of his own (Ononzast., s.v. Avothjair ; Reland, p. 483 ; Porter's Danzascus, ii. 27o). The towns of Havoth-jair were situated in Gilead south of the river Hieromax ; while those of Bashan-havoth-jair were in Bashan, and identi cal with the sixty great cities of Argob (Dent. iii. 14 ; Kings iv. 13 ; see TEAcnoxrrts).—J. L. P.