Ephraim, Mount

Mount Ephraim (Hebrew har ʾephrāyim) refers to the central hill country of Canaan occupied by the tribe of Ephraim, a highland region of approximately 50 by 35 miles in extent, situated between the valleys of Jezreel to the north and Aijalon to the south. The terrain is rugged, with elevations reaching over 3,000 feet, cut by valleys that drain both eastward to the Jordan and westward toward the coastal plain.

The region provided natural defensibility and was densely forested in antiquity, with productive soils in its many valleys. Joshua's allotment placed Ephraim in this central highland, and his own burial ground at Timnath-serah lay here. Shiloh, the first permanent home of the tabernacle, sat within this region. The term Mount Ephraim functions in the prophetic books as a synecdoche for the northern kingdom's heartland, and Jeremiah's promise of return includes the call for watchmen on the hills of Ephraim to announce the way back for the exiles (Jeremiah 31:6).