Makkedah

AI summary: Makkedah is best remembered through the cave narrative in Joshua, where defeated kings sought refuge before being captured and judged. That episode makes the city more vivid than many other conquest names and ties it closely to the assertion of Israelite control in the lowlands. Its location near other strategically important western towns reinforces that setting. The cross references present Makkedah as a conquest city associated with judgment, cave refuge, and military victory.¹

Herdsman’s place, one of the royal cities of the Canaanites (Josh. 12:16), near which was a cave where the five kings who had confederated against Israel sought refuge (10:10-29). They were put to death by Joshua, who afterwards suspended their bodies upon five trees. It has been identified with the modern village called Sumeil, standing on a low hill about 7 miles to the north-west of Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin), where are ancient remains and a great cave. The Palestine Exploration surveyors have, however, identified it with el-Mughar, or “the caves,” 3 miles from Jabneh and 2 1/2 southwest of Ekron, because, they say, “at this site only of all possible sites for Makkedah in the Palestine plain do caves still exist.” (See ADONI-ZEDEC.) ³