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MIZPAH
Name meaning “watchtower” in Hebrew (alternately spelled Mizpeh) used to designate a number of different locations mentioned in the OT and Apocrypha.
1. Place in Gilead where Jacob and Laban made a covenant (Gn 31:49) and set up a heap of stones to mark the borders between their territories.
2. Place referred to as “the land of Mizpah” (Jos 11:3) or the “valley of Mizpah” (Jos 11:8) near Mt Hermon and inhabited by the Hivites.
3. Town in Judah near Lachish referred to in Joshua 15:38.
4. Place in the tribal area of Benjamin (Jos 18:26). It was here that the Israelites gathered to war against the tribe of Benjamin (Jgs 20:1; 21:1) after the men of Gibeah had abused and killed the concubine of a visiting Levite. It was here that Samuel called all Israel together to pray for victory over the Philistines (1 Sm 7:5-8). Later, Samuel called for an assembly at Mizpah to publicly designate Saul as king and to instruct the people and king in the ways of the kingdom (10:17-25). In the time of Asa, Mizpah was a fortified town on the border between Israel and Judah (1 Kgs 15:22). After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC to the Babylonians, Mizpah became the residence of Gedaliah the governor (2 Kgs 25:23-24; Jer 40:10), who was murdered there by Ishmael of the “royal seed” (Jer 41:3). Two days later Ishmael murdered a company of pilgrims who were going to Jerusalem to bring their offerings at the ruined temple, and he cast their bodies into a cistern that had been constructed centuries earlier by Asa.
In the intertestamental period Mizpah continued to be an important religious center. Judas Maccabeus called the people together at Mizpah “because Israel formerly had a place of prayer in Mizpah” (1 Macc 3:46).
5. Home of Jephthah, from which he led the Israelites in battle against the Ammonites, and to which he returned to carry out his vow (Jgs 10–11). This is possibly the same place as the Ramath-mizpeh of Joshua 13:26 and is thought by many to be identified with Khirbat Jal’ad just south of the Jabbok.
6. Town in Moab to which David fled from Saul (1 Sm 22:3).