Baalah
Baalah is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Tulul el Medbah. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
This Baalah is a distinct settlement from the more famous Kiriath-jearim, appearing in Joshua 15:29 in the list of cities in the southern portion of Judah's territorial allotment, in the Negev district. It is listed alongside Iim, Ezem, Eltolad, and other towns of the southernmost Judean inheritance. In Joshua 19:3, a parallel settlement by the name of Balah (a variant spelling) appears in the tribal allotment of Simeon, which was assigned from within the territory of Judah. This indicates that the town belonged originally to the broader Judahite Negev holdings but was then reallocated to Simeon, whose tribal portion was carved out of Judah's territory because Judah's inheritance was too large (Josh. 19:9). The Negev Baalah was one of many modest settlements in the arid fringe of southern Canaan, serving primarily as a base for pastoral and agricultural activities in a challenging semi-desert environment. Many of these southern towns fell in and out of effective Israelite occupation as the region's settlement patterns fluctuated with rainfall and political stability. The town's name, incorporating the divine title Baal, reflects the pre-Israelite Canaanite religious geography of the Negev.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The southern Baalah of Joshua 15:29, tentatively associated with Tulul el-Medbah or sites in the northern Negev, has not been conclusively identified through excavation. The Negev has been the subject of extensive Israeli archaeological surveys, particularly the pioneering work of Rudolph Cohen, which documented hundreds of Iron Age I and II sites across the region. Surface pottery finds confirm broad Israelite-period occupation in the northern Negev consistent with the Simeonite and Judahite settlement lists in Joshua. However, the specific identification of this Baalah with any one excavated or surveyed site remains tentative, as many Negev towns mentioned in Joshua lack secure archaeological correlates.
Verse Appearances (1)
Josh
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]