Dothan

Location

Tel Dothan, in the northern Samarian hills — a probable identification.

• Dothanדֹּתָן — Tel DothanProbable identification 32.41° N, 35.24° EJoseph is cast into a pit and sold to a caravan.

The journey

• Hebron → Shechem≈ 90 km

  North along the ridge road. Roughly 2–3 days on foot.

• Shechem → Dothan≈ 25 km

  Roughly 1 day on foot.

• Dothan → Egypt (the caravan)≈ 500 km

  The coastal road to Egypt. Roughly 14–19 days at caravan pace.

Distances are estimates along plausible ancient corridors, not measured routes.

Biblical Narrative

Joseph dreams of sheaves and stars bowing to him (37:5–11). At Dothan the brothers plot to kill him; Reuben persuades them to throw him into a dry pit instead (37:18–24). Judah proposes selling him; Midianite traders draw him up, and he is sold to Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver (37:26–28). They dip his coat in goat’s blood; Jacob mourns (37:31–35).

Geography

Hebron to Dothan is about 110 km — a long way for a young man travelling alone. Dothan lies at the edge of a valley opening from the hills toward the Jezreel and the coastal plain, beside the route linking Gilead, across the Jordan, with the coastal road to Egypt. It is exactly where a caravan from Gilead would pass.

Historical Context

The caravan’s cargo — nekhot, tseri (balm) and lot (ladanum) — are aromatic resins prized in Egypt for medicine, incense and embalming. Kenneth Kitchen argues that twenty shekels matches slave prices of the early 2nd millennium BCE; others note that such prices varied widely over time.

Archaeology

Tel Dothan, excavated by Joseph P. Free (1953–1964), was a sizeable town from the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age.

Identification

What the text says

“Let us go to Dothan” (37:17).

Traditional identification

The name survives at Tell Dothan.

Scholarly proposals

Tel Dothan (probable).

What remains uncertain

The pit is unknown.