Mount Heres

Mount Heres appears once in Scripture in the Judges 1 catalog of Israelite failures to dispossess the Canaanites: "And the Amorites would dwell in mount Heres in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim: yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries" (Judges 1:35). The Amorites had pressed the tribe of Dan back into the hill country, preventing them from descending into the coastal plain, until the powerful house of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) intervened. The name "Heres" likely derives from "sun" (cf. Beth-shemesh, "house of the sun"), preserving the memory of a Canaanite solar cult on the hill. The site is generally identified with Mount Yearim near Beit-shemesh.