Zaanan

Zaanan appears once in Scripture in Micah's celebrated chapter of place-name puns mourning the doomed Shephelah towns: "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 "Zaanan" plays punningly on the verb "to go forth" (yatzah) — the inhabitants of "Comeforth-town" did not come forth in mourning. The town is generally identified with Zenan (Joshua 15:37) — the same site in Judah's second Shephelah district. The cluster of small frontier villages bore the brunt of the Assyrian invasion that Micah prophesied was about to sweep through the contested western lowlands.