Eltekeh

Eltekeh was a Levitical city in the territory of Dan, assigned to the Kohathite clan of Levites according to Joshua 21:23. It lay in the Shephelah or foothills region west of Judah's highland core. The site's identification is uncertain; proposals have included Khirbet el-Muqanna (Tell Miqne, more commonly identified with Ekron) and other sites in the western plain between the coastal settlements and the hill country.

The area around Eltekeh became strategically significant in 701 BC when Sennacherib king of Assyria defeated an Egyptian and Ethiopian coalition near the city in the same campaign that culminated in the siege of Jerusalem under Hezekiah. The Assyrian annals record a battle at Eltekeh as part of the western campaign, one of the rare points where Assyrian and biblical chronology can be directly correlated. The city's Levitical designation and its proximity to Philistine territory made it a border community between the Israelite and Philistine cultural zones during the monarchic period.