Mizpah in Benjamin

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Mizpah ("watch-tower; the look-out") was a city of Benjamin.

Some scholars have suggested that Mizpah is identical with Nob.^[1] It was some 4 miles north-west of Jerusalem, and situated on the loftiest hill in the vicinity, some 600 feet above the plain of Gibeon.

There is a long-running debate about whether Nabi Samuel or Tell en-Nasbeh is the site of the Biblical Mizpah, with most scholars now favoring Tell en-Nasbeh.^[2]

When the Levite's concubine was raped by the men of Gibeah, the sons of Israel met at Mizpah of Benjamin, where they decided to attack the men of Benjamin for this grievous sin.^[3] After the debacle at Aphek, where they lost the ark to the Philistines, Samuel gathered all Israel to Mizpah to offer sacrifices to the Lord and ask Him to forgive their sin. To memorialize this event, Samuel set up a stone between Mizpah and Shen and named it Eben-Ezer ("stone of help"), because the Lord had helped them.^[4] Samuel gathered the people of Israel to Mizpah for the Lord to identify their first king. There, Saul was chosen by lot from all the tribes and families of Israel.^[5] After the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem, they appointed Gedaliah governor in Mizpah over the remaining residents. Many returned to Mizpah from where they had fled. The prophet Jeremiah came to Mizpah from Ramah, where the Babylonians had released him. Later Ishmael, a member of the royal family, assassinated Gedaliah. Despite Jeremiah's warning that the people would be a reproach and die if they went to Egypt, they persisted in going there.^[6]

Judas Machabeus, preparing for war with the Syrians, gathered his men "to Maspha, over against Jerusalem: for in Maspha was a place of prayer heretofore in Israel".^[7]

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