Town in the hill country of central Israel, north of Shechem and south of the Plain of Esdraelon (Genesis 37:17; 2 Kings 6:13). Dothan is the site of two of the OT's most theologically rich narratives. (1) Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37:17-28): Jacob sent Joseph from Hebron to check on his brothers who were pasturing the flocks at Shechem; a man at Shechem told Joseph the brothers had moved on to Dothan; Joseph found them at Dothan; the brothers conspired to kill him; Reuben persuaded them to throw him into a pit instead; Judah persuaded them to sell him to a passing Ishmaelite caravan headed for Egypt; the brothers sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver. The Dothan narrative is the pivot-point of the entire Joseph story and ultimately of the Jacob-family-into-Egypt narrative that sets up the Exodus. (2) Elisha and the Syrian army (2 Kings 6:13-17): the king of Syria sent a great host with horses and chariots to capture Elisha at Dothan; Elisha's servant rose early and saw the city surrounded; in fear he cried, Alas, my master! how shall we do? Elisha answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. Elisha prayed: LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. The LORD opened the young man's eyes; behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. The episode is one of the great OT visions of the unseen heavenly host accompanying the LORD's faithful servants. The patriarchal-Reformed reader holds Dothan as the place where the LORD's invisible hosts surround His people; the place where the brother sold for silver became the deliverer of the family from famine; both narratives anchoring the theology of God's hidden providential overruling of human treachery and fear.