Tirzah

Tirzah (meaning benevolent, complaisant, or pleasing) was a Canaanite royal city and later the first capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Joshua defeated its king during the conquest (Joshua 12:24), and Tirzah subsequently became the seat of Israelite kings from Jeroboam through the early reign of Omri. Jeroboam's home was at Tirzah (1 Kings 14:17), Baasha reigned and died there (1 Kings 15:21, 33), and it was at Tirzah that the usurper Zimri made his brief seven-day bid for the throne before Omri besieged the city. Omri then ruled from Tirzah six years before moving the capital to the newly purchased hill of Samaria (1 Kings 16:23–24). The site is identified with Tell el-Far'ah North, approximately seven miles northeast of Shechem.

The city retained sufficient beauty and fame to appear in the Song of Solomon: "You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners" (Song of Solomon 6:4). The same name was also borne by the youngest of the five daughters of Zelophehad, who brought a landmark inheritance case before Moses when their father died with no sons (Numbers 26:33; 27:1; 36:11; Joshua 17:3). The daughters' successful petition established daughters' rights of inheritance in the absence of male heirs — a ruling the LORD confirmed and incorporated into Israelite law.