EN-GEDI ĕn gĕd’ ī (עֵֽינ־גֶּֽדִי, Arab. ’Ain Jidi, the spring of the kid). KJV Apoc. ENGADDI (Ecclus 24:14). It is the name of a spring and associated streams that issue from beneath the limestone cliffs on the W side of the Dead Sea at a temperature of 80^oF. It lies almost due E of Hebron. 2 Chronicles 20:2 gives it the name Hazazon-tamar, but this is not likely to be the place of the same name in Genesis 14:7. It belonged to the territory of Judah (Josh 15:62). Because of the oppressive heat of the Dead Sea valley, there can never have been any large population here. In NT times, there seem to have been c. 1,000 population (Jos. War IV. vii. 2). The name Hazazontamar suggests the presence of palm trees, cf. Ecclus 24:14, and Song of Solomon 1:14 mentions vineyards, but both disappeared after the Muslim occupation. The modern Jewish settlement grows early vegetables. The wilderness of En-gedi (1 Sam 24:1), figuring in the story of David, is one of the bleakest parts of the Wilderness of Judah, or Jeshimon (q.v.). When Ammon, Moab, and Edom tried to invade Judah through En-gedi in the time of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 20:1f.), it was presumably, because they hoped to achieve a tactical surprise by attacking one of the few weak spots on Judah’s eastern flank. Once warning had been given, failure was inevitable. En-gedi is mentioned again (Ezek 47:10) in the prophet’s vision of the transformed Dead Sea.