GIBEAH, GIBEATH gĭb’ ĭ ə, gĭb’ ĭ əth (גִּבְעָ֣ה, גִּבְעַ֣ת; hill; LXX Γαβαα, Γαβεε, sometimes βουνός, G1090, hill). To form an adequate understanding of the problems of identification connected with this name, the reader should carefully compare the Heb. spellings of the following forms, all of which come from the same root and have approximately the same meaning; גֶּ֖בַע, גִּבְעָ֣ה, גִּבְעַ֣ת, גִּבְעֹ֖ון, respectively represented in Eng. as “Geba,” “Gibeah,” “Gibeath,” and “Gibeon.” Because much of Pal. is hilly country, it is not surprising that a name meaning “hill” was widely used. Unfortunately, the MT exhibits considerable confusion in the use of these names, a confusion not clarified by the LXX, which neither follows the MT consistently, nor has any other regularly observed practice in its treatment of this name.
Gibeon, properly the chief city of the Hivites who tricked Israel into an alliance to avoid being massacred (Josh 11:19), is confused with Gibeah of Saul (2 Sam 21:6) and with Geba (1 Chron 14:16 is identical with 2 Sam 5:25, except that the former has Gibeon where the latter has Geba). “Gibeath” is simply a different grammatical form (the construct state) of the word “Gibeah”; i.e., in Heb., these two forms are the same name occurring in different forms because of the grammatical context. No attempt should be made to distinguish cities here on the basis of this variation in the form of the name, in spite of the fact that “Gibeath” (Heb.) occurs in Joshua 18:28 where the construct form is not expected. “Geba” and “Gibeah” properly refer to different places, but they are nevertheless frequently confused. In Judges 20:31, the highway can hardly go from Gibeah to Gibeah; surely Geba should be the reading here. Two vv. later, the MT has Geba where Gibeah seems more likely. In Judges 20:10, there can be no doubt that the Geba of the MT refers to Gibeah (so RSV). J. Simons finds the usage in 1 Samuel so fluid as to create the impression that the masculine (Geba) and feminine (Gibeah) forms were used interchangeably (669, 670; see Bibliography). If this assumption is made, the reader will ask himself each time he sees one of these names, which place the context calls for, rather than relying on the form in the MT to distinguish the localities with any degree of finality. It has been argued that 1 Samuel 13:16 refers to the same place as 1 Samuel 14:16, presumably Geba (Jeba’), which is much closer to Michmash than Gibeah (Tell el Fûl), and therefore more suitable as the location for the Israelite army in opposition to the Philistine forces in Michmash. It is certain that Sa ul would keep some of his forces in his capital city (Gibeah, cf. 1 Sam 13:2), and it is possible to make sense out of the text as it stands. Scholars have not been able to agree on any reconstruction of the exact course of events in this war. Perhaps the best approach for the nonspecialist in these matters is to avoid basing any arguments on the use of one name instead of another until he is certain of his ground, bearing in mind that leading geographical and archeological authorities disagree on several readings.
After the readings have been ascertained, and Geba (q.v.) and Gibeon (q.v.) set aside—there are several places called Gibeah.
1. First, a Gibeah is listed with the cities in the hill country of Judah (Josh 15:57). It is identified with el Jab’ah, c. ten m. NW of Beit Immar. It is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture—unless it is identical with the home of Micaiah, the mother of Abijah, king of Judah (2 Chron 13:2).
2. Another Gibeah, located in the hills of Ephraim, belonged to Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, and provided the burial place of Eleazar the priest (Josh 24:33). The site is of no importance in the Bible, but it was known to Josephus (Jos. Antiq. V. i. 29). Its location is unknown.
3. The Gibeah of 1 Samuel 10:10 is distinguished as “Gibeah of God” (RSV Gibeathelohim in 1 Sam 10:5). Though some have identified it with Ram Allah, and others with Gibeah of Saul, it is prob. Geba. Ram Allah is too far N to fit Saul’s itinerary as described here, and he apparently reached Gibeah-elohim before arriving at home (cf. Simons, 669, 670).
4. Finally, there is the Gibeah of Benjamin (1 Sam 13:15), or Gibeah of Saul (11:4), which was first identified with Tell el Fûl by a German, Cross, in 1843. This identification was confirmed by W. F. Albright by excavation in 1922-1923. By far the most important city by this name in the Biblical account, it first comes into prominence in the Book of Judges.
A Levite from the hill country of Ephraim, returning N from Bethlehem, hesitated to spend the night in Jebus (Jerusalem) because it was still controlled by the Jebusites. He preferred to press on to Gibeah of Benjamin. When he arrived in Gibeah, no one invited him into his house in spite of the fact that he had his own provisions with him. Finally, a man from Ephraim who lived in Gibeah came along and offered hospitality, but soon the men of the city surrounded his house and demanded that the traveler be surrendered to them for homosexual abuse. To avert this, the Levite thrust his concubine out to the mob. After raping her all night, the revelers released her at dawn. The Levite took her home, dismembered her body, and sent pieces of her throughout the land of Israel, calling for vengeance on the barbarous inhabitants of Gibeah. When the whole tribe of Benjamin defended the culprits, a bloody intertribal war broke out; over 40,000 Israelites and 25,000 Benjaminites died. Apparently, the Israelites felt more than vindicated by this “victory,” for they then proceeded to murder all the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead except for 400 young virgins, to obtain wives for the 600 Benjaminite survivors of Gibeah (Judg 19-21). As this did not provide enough girls for 600 men, they conspired with the Benjaminites to abduct women from the annual religious feast at Shiloh.
The obvious parallels with the story of Lot’s heavenly messengers in Sodom add to the impression that this city was the very paradigm of evil. (Hosea picked up this connotation in Hos 9:9 and again in 10:9.) If it could be shown that the author of this account actually knew the story of Sodom, he should be credited with an unusual subtlety of style because he nowhere makes the parallel explicit. Nor should it go unnoticed that a later inhabitant of Gibeah, Saul, son of Kish, hacked up a yoke of oxen and sent the pieces throughout Israel as a call to war to free Jabesh-gilead from a siege conducted by Nahash the Ammonite (1 Sam 11:7). Imagine the psychological impact on the Israelite warrior upon the receipt of a piece of gory meat from Gibeah of Benjamin!
At first reading, the story in Judges appears almost as a propaganda piece written to discredit Saul’s claims to the throne, but the fact that Saul killed his own oxen in his bid to rescue the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, the same city that was massacred to provide wives for the earlier people of Gibeah, goes far to offset any propaganda value that the story might have. In fact, Saul could now be seen as the man from Gibeah who undid an earlier wrong. Later, when Saul became king, Gibeah remained his chief residence (1 Sam 10:26; 15:34; 23:19). The fortress of the city was destroyed for the second time (the first time having been in the battle to avenge the Levite) either during Saul’s lifetime or at the time of his death, possibly during the same battle that cost him his life. The fact that the carbonized remains of the wood used in the construction of Saul’s fortress are of cypress and pine indicates that the territory of Benjamin still supported coniferous forests at this period. The fortress was rebuilt almost immediately on the same plan but fell into disuse shortly after David succeeded in reuniting the country.
When Albright first excavated the site, he thought that the next fortification, a watchtower, was built by Asa (1 Kings 15:22, reading Gibeah instead of Geba), but when he returned to the site ten years later, the absence of Iron II pottery convinced him that this fortress must date from the late 9th or early 8th cent. The use of almond indicates the loss of the earlier conifers. This tower was destroyed later in the 8th cent. possibly in the Syro-Ephraimite War, or by Tiglath-pileser III or Sennacherib (cf. Isa 10:29). It was rebuilt in the 7th cent. and destroyed once more, this time presumably by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 or 586 b.c.
After several centuries, the tower was built again, and this time a village grew up on the eastern slope of the hill which lasted about a cent. and a half until its destruction in or about the time of the war between Ptolemy V and Antiochus III. Still, the site retained its attractiveness, and Josephus wrote of a village there in Rom. times—a village that finally came to an end with the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews in a.d. 70 (Jos. War V. ii. 1). This village is of particular interest because a stone manger dating from approximately the time of the birth of Christ was found there, and it is possible that the Savior’s first bed was a similar structure.
Bibliography W. F. Albright: Excavations and Results at Tell el-Fûl (Gibeah of Saul), AASOR, iv (1922-1923); W. F. Albright, “A New Campaign of Excavation at Gibeah of Saul,” BASOR, 52 (1933), 6-12; L. A. Sinclair, An Archaeological Study of Gibeah (Tell el-Fûl), AASOR, xxxiv-xxxv (1954-1956), 5-52, plates 1-35; J. Simons: The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament (1959), §§ 669, 670 passim.