Misrephoth-Maim

(Heb.. Misrephoth'-Mayirm, מַשְׂרְפוֹת מִיַם, burnings of water; according to Kimchi, with allusion to warm baths; but, as Gesenius thinks, from lime- kilns or smelting-furnaces situated near the water; Sept. Μασρεφὼθ Μαϊ v ν, Vulg. aquae Maserephoth), a place between Zidon and the valley of Mizpeh, whither Joshua pursued the allied Canaanites after the defeat of Jabin (Joshua 11:8); from which passage, as well as from the only other where the place is mentioned (Joshua 13:6), it appears to have been a valley (containing springs or a running stream; see Unger, De thermis Sidonis, Lips. 1803), situated in the mountainous region, near the northern border of Canaan, opposite Mount Lebanon; probably therefore in the middle portion of the valley of the Leontes-a position that may have given occasion for the name (i.q. glass-houses by the water side, see Keil, Comment. ad loc.) by furnishing facilities for the manufacture of glass (a substance said to have been first invented in ‘ this region) from the sand washed down by the stream. Dr. Thomson (Land and Book, 1:469) still adheres to a location given by him and Schulz (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1855, page 826) at a collection of springs called Ain-Mesherfi, with ruins adjacent on the shore near Ras en-Nakura, at the foot of Jebel Mushakka, on the northern border of the plain of Akka (Van de Velde. Memoir, page 335); but the locality is entirely too far south of Sidon.