Zobah (Tzova)
צֹבָה
Where was biblical Zobah? At Tel Tzova, above Kibbutz Tzuba, about 11 km west of Jerusalem. I mark it debated. The case for the main rival site is below.
Igal son of Nathan, one of David's mighty warriors, came from a place called Zobah. The map puts his hometown on this high hill west of Jerusalem.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tel Tzova, above Kibbutz Tzuba
- How sure
- Debated Two or more serious candidates.
- Other names
- Tzuba, Suba, Sobah, Belmont, Crusader castle, Tel Tzova
- Location
- 31.7845° N, 35.1179° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The case starts with the name. The Arab village on the hilltop was called Suba, the old name with hardly a change. Remains from the First Temple period have turned up on the hill, so there was a town here in the age of the kings.
The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, adds two hints. Its version of Joshua carries an extra list of hill towns around Bethlehem, and one of them can be read as Zobah. Its reading of another name beside Kiryat Yearim may also point to a Zobah in these hills. Neither is clear, but both point the same way, to the ridges just west of Jerusalem.
The case is thin. A Judean Zobah appears clearly only once in the Hebrew text, in a single line of a list.
The rival reading is serious. David fought the Aramean kingdom of Aram-Zobah, north in Syria, and some scholars read Igal "from Zobah" as a fighter from there. That would make him a foreigner in David's band. The map makes the case for the hill above Kibbutz Tzuba, where the name never left, and leaves Aram-Zobah as the alternative.
Visiting today
Tel Tzova is a heritage site on the Israel Trail, with the ruins of the Crusader castle of Belmont, the remains of Suba, old trees and the tunnel spring of Ein Tzuba nearby.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Tzova on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Kiriath Jearim 3 km northwest
- Mozah (Motza) 5 km east
- Nephtoah 7 km east
- Gibeon 10 km northeast
- Eshtaol 10 km west
- Jerusalem 11 km east