ASPHAR:
A pool in the wilderness of Tekoah, where Jonathan and Simon Maccabeus pitched their tents when they fled before the army of Bacchides (I Macc. ix. 33; compare Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 1, § 2). The identification of the place is uncertain, though the evidence points in favor of associating the pool with the modern Bir-Selhut (Smith, "Historical Geography of Palestine," s.v.; see, however, Buhl, "Geographie des Alten Palästina," p. 158).
