Rakkath
רַקַּת
Where was biblical Rakkath? At Tel Rakkat, on the shore 2 km north of Tiberias. I mark it probable.
Naphtali held Rakkath as a fortified town, guarding the narrow road where the cliffs come down almost to the water.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Rakkat, on the shore 2 km north of Tiberias
- How sure
- Probable The best case we have, with real alternatives.
- Other names
- Raqqat, Khirbet el-Quneitira, Tell Eqlatiyeh
- Location
- 32.8086° N, 35.5246° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
Rakkath appears once in the Tanach, in the list of Naphtali's fortified cities: Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Chinnereth. The order is the clue. Hammath is the hot springs on the western shore of the lake, and Chinnereth is on the same shore. So Rakkath belongs between them, on the water.
The sages of the Talmud already argued about it. Rabbi Yochanan said Rakkath was Tzippori, up in the hills, far from the other lakeside towns in the list. Rava answered that everyone knows it is Tiberias. His proof was the eulogies. When someone from Tiberias died, they mourned him as one of the "residents of Rakkath." The old name had stuck to this shore.
Archaeologists accept the Tiberias area but put the Iron Age town just north of the city, on Tel Rakkat. It is a mound above the lakeside road with four springs at its foot. The tel has barely been dug. Surface finds and a small salvage excavation show people living here from the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age. No inscription names it, so I mark it probable.
Tiberias itself was founded much later, in Roman times. Rava's view still makes sense if the new city simply took over the name of the old mound up the shore.
Visiting today
Tel Rakkat is a small mound just north of Tiberias with scant remains, a lookout over the lake and the Rakkat springs on the shore below.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Rakkat on the interactive map →
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- Hammath 5 km southeast
- The Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) 9 km southeast
- Geshur 15 km northeast
- Mount Tabor 19 km southwest
- Endor 22 km southwest
- Hazor 24 km north