SHUR shŏŏr (שׁ֔וּר; LXX Σουρ; wall). A fortified wall or region along the eastern border of Egypt.

Reference is first made to a line of fortifications on the eastern border of the delta in “the Story of Si-nuhe” where Si-nuhe says he “came up to the wall-of-the-Ruler, made to oppose the Asiatics and to crush the Sand-Crossers” (ANET, p. 19; cf. p. 446). This net of forts, set up to keep out the Bedouin tribes, is prob. referred to in the account of the Ishmaelites who “dwelt from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria” (Gen 25:18), also where “Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt” (1 Sam 15:7), and in connection with David’s “raids upon the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites” who “were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt” (1 Sam 27:8).

It is possible that the ancient fortifications may have given their name to the region E of it, and it is to the latter that the above instances of Shur refer. In Exodus 15:22 such is obviously the case, for Moses led the Israelites “into the wilderness of Shur” called “the wilderness of Etham” in Numbers 33:8. The region is prob. also intended when it is said that Abraham “dwelt between Kadesh and Shur” (Gen 20:1).

Genesis 16:7 mentions “the spring on the way to Shur” where the Lord found Hagar on her flight from Sarai. The “way to Shur” (דֶּ֥רֶכְ שֽׁוּר) is prob. an ancient caravan route, the last segment of the northern route of the King’s Highway which came out of Edom, passed through the wilderness of Zin to Kadesh-barnea and reached Egypt via “the wilderness of Shur” (Exod 15:22).

Bibliography C. L. Woolley and T. E. Lawrence, The Wilderness of Zin (new ed., 1936), 57-62; IDB, R-Z (1962), 342; Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, A Historical Geography (1962, 1967), 10, 11, 39-52, 130, 179.