Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
Woodland and waste land
(1 Sam. 22:5). “House of the Forest” was built of cedars thereof (1 Kings 7:2).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
A Forest in Israel
1. choresh, “thick intricate wood” (2 Chron. 27:4): also translated “wood” in 1 Samuel 23:15-16, 18-19.
2. yaar, “a forest.” This is the word commonly used for both “wood” and “forest;” to be distinguished from a third word, pardes (Neh. 2:8), which signifies “a park,” with cultivated trees, whereas the other is wild. Several forests are specified under the word yaar.
1. The forest in ARABIA (Isa. 21:13): its situation is unknown.
2. The “forest of his CARMEL” (2 Kings 19:23; Isa. 37:24). This reads in the margin, and in the R.V., “forest of his fruitful field,” and does not refer to any forest connected with Carmel.
3. The forest of HARETH (1 Sam. 22:5): situated in Judah, but not known.
4. The forest of LEBANON (1 Kings 7:2; 1 Kings 10:17, 21; 2 Chron. 9:16, 20). The context shows that these passages do not refer to the forest at Lebanon; but that Solomon had a house at Jerusalem built of the trees from Lebanon, and called it “the house of the forest of Lebanon.” The actual forest at Lebanon is often referred to for its noble trees.
5. The wood of EPHRAIM in which Absalom was slain, on the east of the Jordan (2 Sam. 18:6, 8, 17). This has not been identified. It has been suggested that the pride and defeat of Ephraim mentioned in Judges 12:1-6 caused some forest to be called after the name of that tribe. This place, by its swamps, morasses and pits, “devoured” the Israelites by preventing their escape.