Kedesh Naphtali
קֶדֶשׁ
Where was biblical Kedesh Naphtali? At Tel Kedesh, near Kibbutz Malkiya, about 35 km north of Tiberias. I mark it very likely.
Barak son of Abinoam came from this hilltop town when Deborah sent for him. He mustered the men of Zebulun and Naphtali at Kedesh and led ten thousand of them out against Sisera's iron chariots.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Kedesh, near Kibbutz Malkiya
- How sure
- Very likely Strong evidence, with no serious rival.
- Other names
- Kedesh-naphtali, Kadesh, Qedesh, Tel Kedesh, Tell Qades, Kadesa, Kydasa, Cydessa
- Location
- 33.1140° N, 35.5274° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
Kedesh was also the city of refuge for the north. Joshua set apart "Kedesh in the Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali," a safe town for anyone who killed another person by accident.
The name never moved far. An Arab village called Qadas stood beside the tel until 1948. Josephus knew the place as a village on the border between Tyre's land and the Galilee, and Eusebius placed Kedesh near Paneas. The Talmud adds that Kedesh in the mountains of Naphtali faced Golan across the Jordan. That suits this northern hill above the Hula Valley. The Assyrian conquest list fits too. Tiglath-pileser took Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and then Hazor.
Excavators found Bronze and Iron Age layers under a large government building of the Persian and Hellenistic periods. They also found a Roman temple, and its walls are still standing.
The rival concerns Barak, not the city of refuge. Deborah's battle unfolds around Mount Tabor, and Heber the Kenite had pitched his tent near Kedesh. So one proposal puts Barak's Kedesh at Khirbet Qedish, above the southwest shore of the Kinneret, much closer to the fighting. Most scholars still place Barak's home here, in the hill country of Naphtali that the name Kedesh-naphtali points to.
Visiting today
Tel Kedesh is an open tel beside the road along the Lebanese border, free to walk. The walls of the Roman temple still stand on it.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Kedesh on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Hazor 11 km south
- Abel Beth Maacah 17 km north
- Dan 19 km northeast
- Geshur 25 km southeast
- Rakkath 34 km south
- Tyre 35 km northwest