Geshur was a territory in the northern part of
Bashan, adjoining the province of
Argob (
Deuteronomy iii. 14) and the kingdom of Aram or Syria (
II Samuel xv. 8;
I Chronicles ii. 23). It was allotted to the half-
tribe of Manasseh, which settled east of the
Jordan river; but its inhabitants, the Geshurites, could never be expelled (
Josh. xiii. 13). In the time of David, Geshur was an independent
kingdom:
David married a daughter of
Talmai, King of Geshur (II Sam. iii. 3). Her son
Absalom fled, after the murder of his half-brother, to his mother's native country, where he stayed three years (ib. xiii. 37, xv. 8). Geshur is identified with the plateau called to-day "
Lejah," in the center of the
Hauran.
The
Geshurites (unrelated to the above) were a people who dwelt in the desert between
Arabia and
Philistia (Josh. xiii. 2 [A. V. "Geshuri"]; I Sam. xxvii. 8; in the latter citation the Geshurites are mentioned together with the
Gezerites and
Amalekites.
Kibbutz Geshur is a
kibbutz in
Israel.
References