Gibbethon

Gibbethon (meaning: a back; a high house) was a Levitical city in the territory of Dan, assigned to the Kohathite Levites (Joshua 19:44; Joshua 21:23). It lay in the western Shephelah near the Philistine border region, in the territory Dan had difficulty maintaining. The city appears three times in the narrative of the northern kingdom's political turbulence: Nadab king of Israel was besieging Gibbethon — apparently a Philistine-held city at the time — when Baasha assassinated him and seized the throne (1 Kings 15:27).

Later, when the news of Zimri's coup against Elah reached the Israelite army camped at Gibbethon, the troops proclaimed their commander Omri king in the field and marched on Tirzah, where Zimri burned the palace over himself after seven days (1 Kings 16:15–17). Gibbethon thus appears at two of the most violent dynastic transitions in the northern kingdom's history, suggesting it was a strategically contested frontier city that Israel kept within its military orbit even when politically unstable. The site has been tentatively identified with Tell el-Melat in the western Shephelah.