Now it happened, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;
"Hebron ..."  (Joshua 10:3).  This was indeed a powerful city from very ancient times.  Moses tells us that "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt"  (Numbers 13:22).  And who, we might ask, could ever have known a fact like that except Moses?  F. F. Bruce identified Hebron as having the highest elevation of any city in Palestine 3,040 feet above sea level, situated 19 miles south-southwest of Jerusalem.  The date of its founding was about 1720 B.C.[12]  Dating from the times of Abraham when that patriarch pitched his tent under the Oaks of Mamre near there, Hebron was destined to play a major role in Jewish history: