HORITES, an ancient people, who at the beginning dwelt in the Mountains of Gen. xiv. 6. Gen. xxxvi. 20, —30.Seir beyond Jordan. They had Princes, and were powerful even before Esau made a conquest of their country. The Horites, the descendants of Seïr, and the Edomites, seem afterwards to have been confounded, and to have composed but one people. They dwelt in Arabia Petræa, and Arabia Deut. ii. 1. & xxxiii. 2. & Judg. v. 4. חורים Chorim, or Horim, Horræi. 1 Kings xxi. 8, 11. & Neh. ii. 16. iv. 14. v. 7. vi. 17. vii. 5. xiii. 17. Eccl. x. 17. Isai. xxxiv. 12. Jerem. xxvii. 20. xxxix. 6. חרמה Anathema. Judg. i. 17.Deserta, to the south-east of the Promised Land.
We find the Hebrew word Chori or Chorim, which in the book of Genesis is translated Horites, to be used in an appellative sense in several other passages of Scripture, and to signify, Heros, great and powerful men; and it is very probable that the Greeks derived from hence their Heroes, in like manner as they derived Anax, a King, from the sons of Anak, the famous Giant in Palestine.