Where was the cave of Adullam?

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The cave of Adullam was at or near the town of Adullam in the Shephelah, the foothills of Judah, about 26 km south-west of Jerusalem and 20 km west-south-west of Bethlehem in a straight line, just above the southern end of the valley of Elah, where David had fought Goliath. The town is usually placed at Khirbet esh-Sheikh Madhkur, a hilltop with rock-cut caves and cisterns, where the map point stands; the old name is thought to survive in the ruin of Id el-Miyeh at its foot. No inscription has confirmed the identification, and the Bible does not say which of the caves David used. David came here fleeing Saul, after feigning madness before the king of Gath, 16 km away: he “escaped to the cave Adullam”, his family came down to him, and “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him”, about four hundred men. Later, “in the harvest time”, three of his mighty men came to him “unto the cave of Adullam” while the Philistines held Bethlehem; when he longed for water from its well, they broke through and brought it, and he “poured it out unto the LORD”. The same passages say that “David was then in an hold”, and the prophet Gad tells him, “Abide not in the hold”; whether that is the cave itself or another stronghold is disputed. Psalms 57 and 142 (56 and 141 in the Synodal Bible) are headed as prayers “in the cave”; tradition links them to Adullam or to En-gedi. Adullam was a town long before and after David: Judah's friend Hirah was an Adullamite, Rehoboam fortified it, Micah names it “Adullam the glory of Israel”, and men of Judah lived there again after the exile; Judas Maccabeus kept the sabbath in the city of Odollam. In the fourth century AD Eusebius knew it as a very large village ten miles east of Eleutheropolis, Beth Guvrin. Later pilgrims were shown another “cave of Adullam”, the great Khareitun cave near Tekoa, in the wilderness south-east of Bethlehem, a tradition probably owed to the Crusaders, but the biblical town lies in the lowland.