Beth Shean (Beit She'an)
בֵּית שְׁאָן
Where was biblical Beth Shean? At Tel Beit She'an, in Beit She'an National Park, about 35 km south of Tiberias. I mark it certain.
The Philistines hung the bodies of Saul and his sons on the wall here. The men of Yabesh Gilead, whom Saul had once rescued, marched all night to take them down and gave their king an honorable burial.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Beit She'an, in Beit She'an National Park
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Beth-shean, Beth-shan, Scythopolis, Baysan, Beisan, Tell el-Husn
- Location
- 32.5014° N, 35.5002° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The name never disappeared. Hebrew Beit She'an became Arabic Beisan, and the modern town carries the Hebrew name again.
The location answers to the Bible too. The great mound commands the junction of the Jezreel and Jordan valleys, the eastern door of the plain. When the tribes of Joseph complained that the Canaanites had iron chariots, they named two places, Beit She'an and the Jezreel Valley. A chariot city belongs on flat ground at a crossroads, and this is that crossroads.
Excavators uncovered some 18 cities stacked one on top of another. Among them is an Egyptian garrison, with stelae of Pharaohs Seti I and Ramesses II. Manasseh could not drive out the Canaanites here, and the city stayed in non-Israelite hands into Saul's day. By Solomon's time it was part of his fifth district.
Visiting today
In Beit She'an National Park you can climb the biblical tel and look down on the colonnaded streets and theater of Roman Scythopolis below.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Beit She'an on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Mount Gilboa 10 km west
- The Spring of Harod 14 km northwest
- Abel Meholah 15 km south
- The Spring in Jezreel 17 km northwest
- Jezreel 17 km west
- Endor 19 km northwest