Beth-eked
Beth-eked is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Galilee in modern-day Israel. Known today as Beit Qad. It appears across 2 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Beth-eked, meaning "house of binding" or possibly "house of the shearing house," enters the biblical narrative at a violent and defining moment in 2 Kings 10:12-14. As Jehu, newly anointed king of Israel, journeys toward Samaria to complete his bloody purge of the house of Ahab, he encounters forty-two relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah at the shearing house of Beth-eked. These men, apparently unaware of the political upheaval underway, are traveling to greet the royal household of Ahab. Jehu commands his men to seize them, and all forty-two are slaughtered and cast into the pit, a grim episode that extends the scope of Jehu's revolution into the ruling family of Judah as well. The shearing house, a facility for the processing of sheep wool, suggests Beth-eked was a place of pastoral industry, perhaps a caravanserai or stopping point on the road north through the Jezreel Valley. The encounter reveals how Jehu's divinely commissioned purge of Baal worship from Israel swept away both political enemies and hapless bystanders. The episode is part of a larger narrative evaluating the brutal costs and boundaries of God's judgment through human agents.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Beth-eked is widely identified with the modern village of Beit Qad, located in the Dothan Valley region southeast of Jenin in the northern West Bank. The identification is supported by the survival of the ancient name in the Arabic toponym and by the site's position on ancient roads connecting the Jezreel Valley to Samaria. Archaeological surveys in the region have documented Iron Age occupation consistent with the period of Jehu's revolt in the mid-ninth century BC. The site's location along a major north-south travel route makes it a plausible waystation where travelers might halt, consistent with the narrative of the Judahite princes stopping there during their journey.
Verse Appearances (2)
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]