The descendants of Jacob’s son Benjamin occupied one of the smallest of the Israelite tribal allotments–measuring a mere 27 miles (43 km) wide by 14 miles (23 km) high–yet the significance of all the biblical events that took place within it is immense. Benjamin was the location of the Israelites’ very first battles to conquer […]
Category Archives: Exodus & Conquest Period
The Kenites at Jabez
Author’s Note: This article and the accompanying maps grew out of research on the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, Jabez, the Kenites, and the Rechabites provided by Nancy Dawson (independent scholar and author of the book, All the Genealogies of the Bible, Zondervan Academic, 2023) and location identifications provided by Chris McKinney (Director of […]
The Covenant Is Renewed at Shechem
Deuteronomy 11:26-32; 27:1-26; Joshua 8:30-35 A quick search on the internet reveals that some of the top ways to commit something to long term memory include: 1) organizing the information; 2) making associations; 3) using visual cues (graphs, etc.); 4) creating mnemonic devices (rhymes, acrostics, etc.); 5) writing it down; 6) saying it out loud; […]
Nomadic Range of Ishmael’s Descendants
Genesis 21:1-21; 25:1-18; 1 Chronicles 5:3-22 The book of Genesis twice records the origin of the Ishmaelites, who were descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Sarah’s handmaiden Hagar. Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran (Genesis 21:20-21), and his descendants eventually ranged from Shur near Egypt all the way around to Havilah on […]
The Israelites Conquer Ai
Joshua 8 [Author’s note: This map and article assume that Ai was located at Khirbet al-Maqatir and Bethel was located at al-Bira. It is beyond the scope of this article to present all the convincing reasons for these assumptions, but they are well summarized in the following articles: “Traditional Site of Bethel Questioned,” “Location of […]