("pruning of palms".) The old name of Engedi, famed for palms. (See ENGEDI.) Perhaps this was "the city of palm trees" (Jdg_1:16) (though Jericho is generally called so: Deu_34:3), from which the Kenites, the tribe of Moses' father-in-law, went into the wilderness of Judah with the children of Judah. Thus, Balaam standing on a height opposite Jericho, and seeing the western shore of the Dead Sea to Engedi, appropriately speaks of the Kenite as having fixed his "nest" in the cliff there (Num_24:21).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Ha?zezon Ta?mar [EN-GEDI]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.