Mearah

Mearah appears once in Scripture in the Lord's farewell charge to the aged Joshua naming the land still remaining to be possessed: "Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed... All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians... and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek" (Joshua 13:1-4). Mearah is generally identified with a cavern district in the Phoenician hinterland north of Sidon — the Hebrew name literally means "cave," and the region preserved its prehistoric cave-shrine cult into the post-conquest era.