Shaphir

Shaphir appears once in Scripture in Micah's celebrated chapter of place-name puns mourning the doomed Shephelah towns: "Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel; he shall receive of you his standing" (Micah 1:11). The Hebrew name "Shaphir" means "beautiful" or "fair" — and Micah twists the irony brutally: the people of "Fairtown" will be exposed naked in shame as the Assyrian invader sweeps through the Shephelah. The site is commonly identified with the cluster of three villages called es-Suwafir near modern Ashdod, about twenty miles southwest of Lachish.