The original name could therefore relate to the oath of Abraham and Abimelech ('well of the oath') or the seven ewes in that oath ('well of the seven'), as related in Genesis 21:31, and/or to the oath of Isaac and Abimelech in Genesis 26:33. On that same day, Isaac's men came to him to tell him of the well which they had dug, and they said to him, "We found water." And he called it Shib'a ("seven" normally, possibly "oath" or a proper noun) therefore the name of the city is Be'er Sheba to this day. And they arose in the morning, and they swore ( wa-yishabǝ'u) each to his fellow, and Isaac sent them off, and they departed him in peace. And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What mean these seven ewes, which you have set apart? And said, "That you are to take these seven ( sheba) ewes from me, to be for me a witness that I have dug this well ( bǝ'er)." Therefore the name of that place was Be'er Sheba, for there the two of them had sworn ( nishbǝ'u).Īnd Isaac redug the wells which had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, and which the Philistines had sealed after the death of Abraham, and he used the same names as had his father. The Book of Genesis gives two etymologies for the name Be'er Sheba. The city has constructed over 250 roundabouts, earning its moniker as the "Roundabouts Capital of the Israel" and the largest number of roundabouts in the world. This city also serves as a center for Israel's high-tech and developing technology industry. īeersheba is home to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The Soviet immigrants have made the game of chess a major sport in Beersheba, and it is now Israel's national chess center, with more chess grandmasters per capita than any other city in the world. Second and third waves of immigration have taken place since 1990, bringing Russian-speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union as well as Beta Israel immigrants from Ethiopia. Today, the metropolitan area is composed of approximately equal Jewish and Arab populations, with a large portion of the Jewish population made up of the descendants of Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews who were expelled from Arab countries after Israel's founding in 1948, as well as smaller communities of Bene Israel and Cochin Jews from India. In October 1948 it was captured by the Israel Defense Forces and the Arab population was expelled. Bir Seb'a ( Arabic: بئر السبع), as it was then known, had been almost entirely Muslim and Christian, and was designated to be part of the Arab state in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The population of the town was completely changed in 1948–49. The city was captured by the British-led Australian Light Horse troops in the Battle of Beersheba during World War I. The Biblical site of Beersheba is Tel Be'er Sheva, lying some 4 km distant from the modern city, which was established at the start of the 20th century by the Ottomans. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most populous Israeli city with a population of 211,251, and the second-largest city in area (after Jerusalem), with a total area of 117,500 dunams (45 mi 2 / 117.5 km 2). 'Well of the Oath' or 'Well of the Seven'), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Beersheba ( / b ɪər ˈ ʃ iː b ə/ beer- SHEE-bə), officially Be'er-Sheva (usually spelled Beer Sheva Hebrew: בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, romanized: Bəʾēr Ševaʿ, IPA: ⓘ Arabic: بِئْر السَّبْع, romanized: Biʾr as-Sabʿ Arabic pronunciation: lit.
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