Jattir
Jat'tir (Heb. Yattir', יִתַּיר [in Jos 15:48, elsewhere "defectively" יִתַּר], pre-eminent; Sept. Ι᾿εθέρ or Ι᾿έθερ), a city in the mountains of Judah (Jos 15:48, where it is named between Shamir and Socoh) assigned to the priests (Jos 21:14; 1Ch 6:57). It was one of the places in the south where David used to haunt in his freebooting days, and to his friends in which he sent gifts from the spoil of the enemies of Jehovah (1Sa 30:27). The two Ithrite heroes of David's guard (2Sa 23:38; 1Ch 11:40) were possibly from Jattir, living memorials to him of his early difficulties. According to Eusebius and Jerome (Onomast. s.v. Jether), it was in their day a very large hamlet inhabited by Christians, twenty Roman miles from Eleutheropolis, in the district of the Daroma, near Molatha (Reland, Palcest. p. 885). It is named by Hap-Parchi, the Jewish traveler; but the passage is defective, and little can be gathered from it (Zunz, in Asher's Benj. of Tudela, 2, 442). The required position answers nearly to that of the modern village of 'Attir, discovered by Dr. Robinson (Researches, 2, 194, 625) in this region, "marked by caves upon a hill" (comp. Wilson, Lands of Bible, i, 353), and situated fifteen miles south of Hebron, and five north of Moladah (Schwarz, Palestine, p. 105). It contains extensive ruins (Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 388).
