Eshtaol

AI summary: Eshtaol is woven into the frontier world where Dan struggled to hold territory and where Samson's story takes shape. It is named among the towns of the low country, but the Judges references give it its real character: this is part of Samson's home landscape, the place associated with the stirring of his calling and later with his burial. The same cluster of passages also ties Eshtaol to the Danite migration northward, so the town belongs to a story of instability, courage, and unfinished settlement. The cross references present Eshtaol as a borderland town strongly marked by Samson and by Dan's shifting fortunes.¹

Narrow pass or recess, a town (Josh. 15:33) in the low country, the She-phelah of Judah. It was allotted to the tribe of Dan (Josh. 19:41), and was one of their strongholds. Here Samson spent his boyhood, and first began to show his mighty strength; and here he was buried in the burying-place of Manoah his father (Judg. 13:25; 16:31; 18:2, 8, 11, 12). It is identified with the modern Yeshua, on a hill 2 miles east of Zorah. Others, however, identify it with Kustul, east of Kirjath-jearim. ³