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•DOR dwelling, the Dora of the Romans, an ancient royal city of the Canaanites (Joshua 11:1, 2; 12:23). It was the most southern settlement of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria. The original inhabitants seem never to have been expelled, although they were made tributary by David. It was one of Solomon’s commissariat districts (Judges 1:27; 1 Kings 4:11). It has been identified with Tantura (so named from the supposed resemblance of its tower to a tantur, i.e., “a horn”). This tower fell in 1895, and nothing remains but debris and foundation walls, the remains of an old Crusading fortress. It is about 8 miles north of Caesarea, “a sad and sickly hamlet of wretched huts on a naked sea-beach.”
•DORCAS a female antelope, or gazelle, a pious Christian widow at Joppa whom Peter restored to life (Acts 9:36-41). She was a Hellenistic Jewess, called Tabitha by the Jews and Dorcas by the Greeks.
•DOTHAN two wells, a famous pasture-ground where Joseph found his brethren watching their flocks. Here, at the suggestion of Judah, they sold him to the Ishmaelite merchants (Genesis 37:17). It is mentioned on monuments in B.C. 1600.
It was the residence of Elisha (2 Kings 6:13), and the scene of a remarkable vision of chariots and horses of fire surrounding the mountain on which the city stood. It is identified with the modern Tell-Dothan, on the south side of the plain of Jezreel, about 12 miles north of Samaria, among the hills of Gilboa. The “two wells” are still in existence, one of which bears the name of the “pit of Joseph” (Jubb Yusuf).
•DOUGH (batsek, meaning “swelling,” i.e., in fermentation). The dough the Israelites had prepared for baking was carried away by them out of Egypt in their kneading-troughs (Exodus 12:34, 39). In the process of baking, the dough had to be turned (Hos. 7:8).
•DOVE In their wild state doves generally build their nests in the clefts of rocks, but when domesticated “dove-cots” are prepared for them (Cant. 2:14; Jeremiah 48:28; Isaiah 60:8). The dove was placed on the standards of the Assyrians and Babylonians in honour, it is supposed, of Semiramis (Jeremiah 25:38; Vulg., “fierceness of the dove;” comp. Jeremiah 46:16;