Shur

Shur shur, shoor (shur; Sour): The name of a desert East of the Gulf of Suez. The word means a "wall," and may probably refer to the mountain wall of the Tih plateau as visible from the shore plains. In Ge 16:7 Hagar at Kadesh (`Ain Qadis) (see 16:14) is said to have been "in the way to Shur." Abraham also lived "between Kadesh and Shur" (Ge 20:1). The position of Shur is defined (Ge 25:18) as being "opposite Egypt on the way to Assyria." After crossing the Red Sea (Ex 15:4) the Hebrews entered the desert of Shur (Ex 15:22), which extended southward a distance of three days' journey. It is again noticed (1Sa 15:7) as being opposite Egypt, and (1Sa 27:8) as near Egypt. There is thus no doubt of its situation, on the East of the Red Sea, and of the Bitter Lakes.

Brugsch, however, proposed to regard Shur ("the wall") as equivalent to the Egyptian anbu ("wall"), the name of a fortification of some kind apparently near Kantarah] (see MIGDOL (2)), probably barring the entrance to Egypt on the road from Pelusium to Zoan. The extent of this "wall" is unknown, but Brugsch connects it with the wall mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (i.4) who wrote about 8 BC, and who attributed it to Sesostris (probably Rameses II) who defended "the east side of Egypt against the irruptions of the Syrians and Arabians, by a wall drawn from Pelusium through the deserts as far as to Heliopolis, for a space of 1,500 furlongs." Heliopolis lies 90 miles (not 188) Southwest of Pelusium: this wall, if it existed at all, would have run on the edge of the desert which extends North of Wady Tumeilat from Kantarah] to Tell el-Kebir; but this line, on the borders of Goshen, is evidently much too far West to have any connection with the desert of Shur East of the Gulf of Suez. See Budge, Hist. Egypt, 90; Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, abridged edition, 320.

C. R. Conder