An ancient Amorite. Genesis 13:18, "the plain (rather the oaks or terebinths) of Mamre"; Genesis 14:13; Genesis 14:24, brother of Eshcol, friend and ally of Abraham. The chieftain had planted the terebinths, or was associated with them as his tenting place; so "the oak of Deborah" (Judges 4:5). Mamre was less than a mile from Hebron (Josephus, B. J. 4:9, section 7); but Robinson makes it two Roman miles off, now the hill er Rameh.
Constantine, to suppress the superstitions veneration to the terebinths, erected a basilica or church on the spot. That it was on an elevation appears from the record that Machpelah faces it (Genesis 23:17-19; Genesis 25:9). Abram resided under the oak grove shade in the interval between his stay at Bethel and at Beersheba (Genesis 13:18; Genesis 18:1; Genesis 20:1; Genesis 21:31). If Machpelah be on the N.E. side of the Hebron valley, then Mamre as "facing it" must have been on the opposite slope, where the governor's house now is. (See HEBRON.)