Where was Mizpah, where Samuel judged Israel?

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Mizpah of Benjamin, where Samuel judged Israel and Saul was chosen king, is usually identified with Tell en-Nasbeh, a low hill beside the old road north from Jerusalem, about 12 km from the city in a straight line; the map point stands there. The main alternative is Nebi Samwil, the high hill north-west of Jerusalem where a later tradition shows the tomb of Samuel. The name means “watchtower”, and the Bible has more than one Mizpah: another lay in Gilead, east of the Jordan, about 59 km away. At Mizpah all Israel gathered before the war on Benjamin, and here Samuel called the people when the Philistines pressed them: “they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted on that day… And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh.” After the victory he “took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” Mizpah was one of the three towns of his yearly circuit with Bethel and Gilgal, and here Saul was chosen by lot. Later Asa of Judah fortified it with the stones Baasha had brought to Ramah, 4 km away; the massive wall of Tell en-Nasbeh is often linked with this work. After the Babylonians burned Jerusalem in 587 or 586 BC, Mizpah became the seat of Gedaliah, the governor they appointed: “Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land.” There Ishmael son of Nethaniah murdered Gedaliah. William F. Badè excavated Tell en-Nasbeh in 1926–1935, and the finds fit this story: the town was not destroyed with Jerusalem and flourished in the sixth century BC, which is the strongest argument for the identification. The Mizpah of Gilead is the heap of stones where Jacob and Laban parted: “The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Jephthah came home there from his victory and his daughter came out to meet him. Its site is unknown; the map follows the proposal at Jel‘ad in the hills of Gilead, one of several candidates.