Mizpah

Mizpah (also Mizpeh, meaning watch-tower or look-out) was the name given to several distinct locations in biblical Israel. The most famous was Mizpah of Gilead, east of the Jordan, where Laban and Jacob set up a cairn of stones as a covenant memorial (Gen. 31:49), giving the site its name with the blessing "the LORD watch between me and thee." This same Gilead Mizpah became associated with Jephthah, who made his ill-fated vow there and from it led Israel against the Ammonites (Judg. 11:11, 34). A second Mizpah in Benjamin served as a major national assembly point: Samuel gathered Israel there for prayer and renewal (1 Sam. 7:5–12), and later it was the scene of Saul's election as king (1 Sam. 10:17). After the fall of Jerusalem it became the seat of Gedaliah's governorship (2 Kings 25:23). This Benjaminite Mizpah is generally identified with Tell en-Nasbeh, eight miles north of Jerusalem.