Bible Locations

Pathros was the Hebrew name for Upper Egypt, the southern part of the country along the Nile valley, from around Memphis south to Aswan. The name comes from Egyptian "Pa-ta-resy," meaning "the southern land." Isaiah 11:11 lists Pathros among the places from which God would gather His scattered people. After Jerusalem fell, some Jews fled to Egypt and lived "in Lower Egypt and in Upper Egypt" (Jeremiah 44:1). There Jeremiah rebuked them for burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, and the people answered that things went better when they worshiped her. Ezekiel 29:14 says God would bring Egypt back to Pathros, "the land of their ancestry." The Jewish military colony at Elephantine, an island in the Nile at Aswan, shows that Jews lived in Pathros in the 400s BC. Papyri found there include letters about their temple and Passover.