The Galilee

הַגָּלִיל

Where is the Galilee? Northern Israel, from the Jezreel Valley to Lebanon. I mark it certain.

Tiglath-pileser of Assyria conquered Galilee before the rest of the kingdom of Israel. He took "Galilee, all the land of Naphtali," and carried its people into exile.

By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker

Site today
Northern Israel, from the Jezreel Valley to Lebanon
How sure
Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
Other names
HaGalil, Galil HaGoyim, Galilee of the Nations, Upper Galilee, Lower Galilee
Location
32.8615° N, 35.3996° E (Google Maps)
The Galilee on the hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel
Galilee on our hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel. Get the full map as a print →

How we know where it was

Galil means a circle or a district, and the name has stayed on these hills since the Bible. The Tanach places Kedesh "in Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali." Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns "in the land of Galilee." And Tiglath-pileser's own annals record the campaign that the Book of Kings tells from Israel's side.

Isaiah called it "Galilee of the Nations," a land of mixed peoples at Israel's northern edge. The same prophecy promises that the people who walked in darkness there will see a great light. The Mishnah later divides it into Upper and Lower Galilee, with the line at Kfar Hananya.

Visiting today

Galilee is open and easy to visit. Hazor, Tel Kedesh, Mount Tabor, the Arbel cliffs and the shore of the Kinneret are all here.

Read it in the Bible

Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.

See Galilee on the interactive map →

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