{"id":926,"date":"2022-05-16T06:40:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T10:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/?p=926"},"modified":"2025-10-30T20:42:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T00:42:20","slug":"geshur-and-maacah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/05\/16\/geshur-and-maacah\/","title":{"rendered":"Geshur and Maacah"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The remote region surrounding the Upper Jordan River was home to two small nations that are frequently overlooked regarding their role in Israelite history: Geshur and Maacah. The land occupied by these two nations fell within the allotted territories of Naphtali and Manasseh, but Israel was never able to drive them out (Joshua 12:5; 13:1-13), and they remained as small, autonomous enclaves within Israel much like the Philistines along the coast. During David&#8217;s time, the nation of Maacah (also called Aram-maacah) contributed warriors to the coalition that fought against David after his messengers were humiliated by the Ammonites (2 Samuel 10:6-8; 1 Chronicles 19:6-7; see <a href=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/10\/14\/david-defeats-the-ammonites-and-the-arameans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;David Defeats the Ammonites and the Arameans&#8221;<\/a> map). The nation of Geshur, on the other hand, appears to have enjoyed a more peaceful relationship with Israel during David&#8217;s time, likely due to David&#8217;s marriage to Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. David&#8217;s son Absalom was born to Maacah, so when Absalom killed his half brother Amnon, he fled to Geshur for refuge (2 Samuel 13-14; see <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/11\/18\/absalom-rebels-against-david\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Absalom Rebels against David&#8221;<\/a> map). Sometime later, perhaps during an era of Aramean dominance, Geshur joined Aram to capture all of Bashan (1 Chronicles 2:23). Centuries later, Jesus and his disciples traveled to Panias (which was called Caesarea Philippi by Jesus&#8217; time), and it was there that Peter made his great declaration that Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus was transfigured before them (Matthew 16:13-17:13; Mark 8:27-9:13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/UpperJordanRegion.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-927\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/images\/hi-res\/UpperJordanRegion_high.jpg\">download hi-res file<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"photolauncher\" style=\"display:none;\" mapbasename=\"UpperJordanRegion\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The remote region surrounding the Upper Jordan River was home to two small nations that are frequently overlooked regarding their role in Israelite history: Geshur and Maacah. The land occupied by these two nations fell within the allotted territories of Naphtali and Manasseh, but Israel was never able to drive them out (Joshua 12:5; 13:1-13), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,10,9,15,12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david","category-dividedmonarchyperiod","category-exodusandconquestperiod","category-judgesperiod","category-oldtestament","category-romanperiod","category-unitedmonarchyperiod","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbsXLW-eW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3805,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}