town or village

Gibeah

• Today Tel el Ful
• Location disputed

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History

Gibeah, whose name means "hill", was a town of Benjamin, also called Gibeah of Benjamin and Gibeah of Saul. It is usually identified with Tell el-Ful, a hill on the ridge road about 5 km north of ancient Jerusalem; Josephus puts "the Hill of Saul" about thirty furlongs from the city. The identification is not certain: Edward Robinson looked for Gibeah at Jaba, the site of Geba, and Israel Finkelstein has rejected Tell el-Ful. W. F. Albright began excavating the hill in 1922, and Paul Lapp dug a third campaign there in 1964.

Albright found a fortified tower and ascribed its first phase to Saul; Finkelstein dates its building to the period of Assyrian rule and sees it as a watchtower on the northern approach to Jerusalem, so the date of the fortress remains disputed. In Judges, a Levite and his concubine lodged at Gibeah on their way home; men of the town abused the woman until she died. All Israel went up against Gibeah, Benjamin defended it, and after two defeats the tribes took the town by ambush and set it on fire. Hosea later recalled it in the words "as in the days of Gibeah".

Gibeah was the home of Saul, the first king of Israel. After he was chosen king, Saul went home to Gibeah, and there messengers came from besieged Jabesh-gilead to ask for help. During his war with the Philistines, Saul and his men held Gibeah of Benjamin while the enemy camped at Michmash, and after his break with Samuel, Saul went to his house at Gibeah of Saul. Later the Gibeonites asked for seven of Saul's descendants to hang them in Gibeah of Saul. Isaiah, describing an army marching on Jerusalem from the north, says that Gibeah of Saul has fled, and Hosea calls for the horn to be blown in Gibeah and Ramah.

A fort stood on Tell el-Ful again in Hellenistic times. In AD 70 Titus, marching on Jerusalem, camped in the Valley of Thorns near a village that Josephus calls Gabaothsaul, the Hill of Saul. In his letter of AD 404 on the death of Paula, Jerome describes her pilgrimage and says that she stopped at Gibeah, now a complete ruin, and recalled the story of the concubine.

Scripture: Judg 19:12–15; Judg 19:22–28; Judg 20:4–5; Judg 20:8–13; Judg 20:19–25; Judg 20:29–40; Hos 9:9; Hos 10:9; 1 Sam 10:26; 1 Sam 11:4; 1 Sam 13:15–16; 1 Sam 14:16; 1 Sam 15:34; 2 Sam 21:6; Isa 10:29; Hos 5:8

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (45)

Judg 19:12

And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel; we will pass over to Gibeah.

Judg 19:13

And he said unto his servant, Come, and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night, in Gibeah, or in Ramah.

Judg 19:14

And they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belongeth to Benjamin.

Judg 19:15

And they turned aside thither, to go in and to lodge in Gibeah: and when he went in, he sat him down in a street of the city: for there was no man that took them into his house to lodging.

Judg 19:16

And, behold, there came an old man from his work out of the field at even, which was also of mount Ephraim; and he sojourned in Gibeah: but the men of the place were Benjamites.

Judg 20:4

And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge.

Judg 20:5

And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead.

Judg 20:9

But now this shall be the thing which we will do to Gibeah; we will go up by lot against it;

Judg 20:10

And we will take ten men of an hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and an hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to fetch victual for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, according to all the folly that they have wrought in Israel.

Judg 20:13

Now therefore deliver us the men, the children of Belial, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put away evil from Israel. But the children of Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren the children of Israel:

Judg 20:14

But the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together out of the cities unto Gibeah, to go out to battle against the children of Israel.

Judg 20:15

And the children of Benjamin were numbered at that time out of the cities twenty and six thousand men that drew sword, beside the inhabitants of Gibeah, which were numbered seven hundred chosen men.

Judg 20:19

And the children of Israel rose up in the morning, and encamped against Gibeah.

Judg 20:20

And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin; and the men of Israel put themselves in array to fight against them at Gibeah.

Judg 20:21

And the children of Benjamin came forth out of Gibeah, and destroyed down to the ground of the Israelites that day twenty and two thousand men.

Judg 20:25

And Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men; all these drew the sword.

Judg 20:29

And Israel set liers in wait round about Gibeah.

Judg 20:30

And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and put themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times.

Judg 20:31

And the children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to smite of the people, and kill, as at other times, in the highways, of which one goeth up to the house of God, and the other to Gibeah in the field, about thirty men of Israel.

Judg 20:34

And there came against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was sore: but they knew not that evil was near them.

Judg 20:36

So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten: for the men of Israel gave place to the Benjamites, because they trusted unto the liers in wait which they had set beside Gibeah.

Judg 20:37

And the liers in wait hasted, and rushed upon Gibeah; and the liers in wait drew themselves along, and smote all the city with the edge of the sword.

Judg 20:43

Thus they inclosed the Benjamites round about, and chased them, and trode them down with ease over against Gibeah toward the sunrising.

1 Sam 7:1

And the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD.

1 Sam 10:10

And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.

1 Sam 10:26

And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.

1 Sam 11:4

Then came the messengers to Gibeah of Saul, and told the tidings in the ears of the people: and all the people lifted up their voices, and wept.

1 Sam 13:2

Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Beth-el, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.

1 Sam 13:15

And Samuel arose, and gat him up from Gilgal unto Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people that were present with him, about six hundred men.

1 Sam 14:2

And Saul tarried in the uttermost part of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people that were with him were about six hundred men;

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King James Version