Gibbethon or Gibbeton was a biblical city in the land of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

In the Hebrew Bible

According to the record in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Tribe of Dan The Tribe of Dan (, "Judge") was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Torah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe initially settled in the hill lands bordering Tribe of Ephraim, Ephraim and Tribe of Benjamin, Benjamin on the ...

after the entry of the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

into the

Promised Land In the Abrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" ( ) refers to a swath of territory in the Levant that was bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants by God in Abrahamic religions, God. In the context of the Bible, these descendants are originally ...

and was then given to the

Tribe of Levi According to the Bible, the Tribe of Levi is one of the tribes of Israel, traditionally descended from Levi, son of Jacob. The descendants of Aaron, who was the first High Priest of Israel, were designated as the priestly class, the Kohanim. ...

. According to the

Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...

, it was given as a

Levitical city In the Hebrew Bible, the Levitical cities were 48 cities in ancient Israel set aside for the tribe of Levi, who were not allocated their own territorial land when the Israelites entered the Promised Land. Numbers 35:1-8 relates God's command t ...

to the

Kohathites The Kohathites were one of the four main divisions among the Levites in biblical times, the other three being the Gershonites, the Merarites, and the Aaronites (more commonly known as Kohanim). The Bible claims that the Kohathites were all desce ...

. However, in it was recorded as being a city of the

Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...

. Nadab, the second king of the

northern Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel ( ), also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It c ...

, besieged Gibbethon. During the siege, Baasha the son of

Ahijah Ahijah ( ''ʾĂḥīyyā'', "brother of Yahweh, Yah"; Latin and Douay–Rheims Bible, Douay–Rheims: Ahias) is a name of several biblical individuals: # Ahijah the Shilonite, the Biblical prophet who divided the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. # One ...

, a member of the

tribe of Issachar According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Issachar () was one of the twelve tribes of Israel and one of the ten lost tribes. In Jewish tradition, the descendants of Issachar were seen as being dominated by religious scholars and influential in ...

, killed King Nadab of Israel and made himself king, reigning over the northern kingdom for 24 years. John James Blunt, in his ''Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments'' (1882), suggested that "the place had been deserted by the

Levites Levites ( ; ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew definite article "" ''Ha-' ...

, in the general exodus to Judah, othat the Philistines availed themselves of the opportunity to seize and fortify it".Blunt, J. J. (1882). ''Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments'', quoted in ''

Pulpit Commentary The ''Pulpit Commentary'' is a homiletic commentary on the Bible first published between 1880 and 1919

''
1 Kings 15
Accessed via biblehub.com, 21 September 2015

Identification

In the late 19th century, Gibbethon has been identified with al-Majdal, near

Ashkelon Ashkelon ( ; , ; ) or Ashqelon, is a coastal city in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The modern city i ...

, and so possibly on the border of Danite Israel and

Philistia Philistia was a confederation of five main cities or pentapolis in the Southwest Levant, made up of principally Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and for a time, Jaffa (part of present-day Tel Aviv-Yafo). Scholars believe the Philist ...

. Israeli archaeologist

Benjamin Mazar Benjamin Mazar (; born Binyamin Zeev Maisler, June 28, 1906 – September 9, 1995) was a pioneering Israeli historian, recognized as the "dean" of biblical archaeologists. He shared the national passion for the archaeology of Israel that also at ...

located it in 1960 in a region to the north of the

Sorek Valley Naḥal Sorek (; ), also Soreq, is one of the largest, most important drainage basins in the Judean Hills. It is mentioned in the Book of Judges 16:4 of the Bible as the border between the ancient Philistines and the Tribe of Dan of the ancient ...

, possibly at Tel Malot,Spivak, Polina
"Tel Malot: Final Report."
Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel, vol. 129, 2017, p.1-11 located northwest of the city of

Beit Shemesh Beit Shemesh () is a city council (Israel), city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024. The city is named afte ...

and due west of the city of

Gezer Gezer, or Tel Gezer (), in – Tell Jezar or Tell el-Jezari is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shfela region roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is now an List of national parks ...

References

{{Authority control Hebrew Bible cities Philistine cities Tribe of Dan