Moreh is a place name that shows up at two very different moments. Abram, newly arrived in Canaan, passes through the land to “the plain of Moreh,” and the text notes that the Canaanites were then living there. Many generations later, the Midianite army lay camped in a valley near the hill of Moreh while Gideon and his small band pitched beside the well of Harod. The landmark stays put while the people change. One scene is of a stranger passing through, the other of a battle about to begin. Read Genesis 12 and Judges 7 side by side.
3 verses
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early, and pitched beside the well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
An archer, teacher; fruitful. (1.) A Canaanite probably who inhabited the district south of Shechem, between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, and gave his name to the “plain” there (Gen. 12:6). Here at this “plain,” or rather (R.V.) “oak,” of Moreh, Abraham built his first altar in the land of Palestine; and here the Lord appeared unto him. He afterwards left this plain and moved southward, and pitched his tent between Bethel on the west and Hai on the east (Gen. 12:7, 8).
William Smith, 1884
(teacher).
(1.) The plain or plains (or, as it should rather be rendered, the oak or oaks) of Moreh. The oak of Moreh was the first recorded halting-place of Abram after his entrance into the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12:6) It was at the "place of Shechem," ch. (Genesis 12:6) close to the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim. (11:30)
(2.) The hill of Moreh, at the foot of which the Midianites and Amalekites were encamped before Gideon’s attack upon them. (Judges 7:1) It lay in the valley of Jezreel, rather on the north side of the valley, and north also of the eminence on which Gideon’s little band of heroes was clustered. These conditions are most accurately fulfilled if we assume Jebel ed-Duhy , the "Little Hermon" of the modern travellers, 1815 feet above the Mediterranean, to be Moreh, the Ain-Jalood to be the spring of Harod, and Gideon’s position to have been on the northeast slope of Jebel Fukua (Mount Gilboa), between the village of Nuris and the last-mentioned spring.