Ebenezer
Ebenezer is a mountain mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as between Mizpah and Shen. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Ebenezer in this instance refers to a memorial stone rather than a city, erected by Samuel after a decisive Israelite victory over the Philistines. Following years of Philistine oppression, Samuel called Israel to gather at Mizpah for a day of fasting, confession, and prayer. When the Philistines moved against the assembled Israelites, Samuel offered a burnt offering and cried out to the LORD, who "thundered with a loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such confusion that they were routed before Israel" (1 Samuel 7:10). In celebration of this miraculous deliverance, Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, naming it Ebenezer: "Stone of Help", declaring, "Thus far the LORD has helped us" (1 Samuel 7:12). The name itself inverts an earlier painful memory: a place called Ebenezer had been the site of Israel's catastrophic defeat in 1 Samuel 4:1–11, where the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant. Samuel's stone reclaimed that name with a declaration of renewed divine assistance. Ebenezer became an enduring theological affirmation that Israel's history was sustained not by its own strength but by the faithfulness of God, a conviction embedded in the famous hymn line, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer."
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Ebenezer memorial stone erected by Samuel is located textually between Mizpah and Shen in the Benjaminite highlands northwest of Jerusalem. Mizpah is generally identified with Tell en-Nasbeh, approximately 12 kilometers north of Jerusalem, which has been extensively excavated and yielded significant Iron Age I and II remains including a massive city wall and gate complex. Shen's location is uncertain. The area between these sites corresponds to the low hill country of Benjamin, a region characterized by limestone ridges and agricultural terraces. No stone monument identifiable as Samuel's Ebenezer has been found archaeologically, as such field memorials rarely survive. However, survey work in the region confirms dense Iron Age I settlement consistent with the Samuel narratives.
Verse Appearances (1)
1Sam
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]