Elkoshite
Elkoshite is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Galilee in modern-day Israel. Known today as El Kauzeh. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Elkoshite is not a place-name in the conventional sense but rather a gentilicial designation — "the Elkoshite" — applied to the prophet Nahum in Nahum 1:1, identifying him by his hometown or region of origin. The book of Nahum opens: "The burden against Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite." Elkosh, Nahum's home, has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate, with proposed identifications ranging from Galilee to Judah to Mesopotamia. The most widely accepted is a site in Galilee, identified with the modern Israeli Arab village of El Kauzeh (also spelled Elkosh or Capernaum — "village of Nahum" in Hebrew). If this identification is correct, Nahum was a Galilean prophet who proclaimed the downfall of Nineveh, Assyria's capital — the very empire that had destroyed the northern kingdom and threatened Judah. Nahum's oracle, delivered perhaps around 650–620 BC, proclaimed with fierce poetry the justice of God against Nineveh's cruelty: "The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Nahum 1:3). Nineveh fell to the Babylonians in 612 BC.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The identification of Elkosh with El Kauzeh in Upper Galilee rests primarily on the linguistic similarity between the Arabic toponym and the Hebrew name, a common method for preserving ancient place-names in the landscape. The village of El Kauzeh, near modern Beit Jann in the Galilee highlands, has local traditions associating it with the prophet Nahum, and an old tomb in the area has been venerated as Nahum's burial place, though without archaeological verification. Systematic excavation of El Kauzeh has not been conducted. Alternative identifications include Al-Qosh in northern Iraq, which also preserves a tradition of Nahum's tomb. The question of Elkosh's location remains unresolved among biblical geographers and commentators.
Verse Appearances (1)
Nah
Sources: ISBE Encyclopedia · OpenBible Geocoding (CC BY) · Pleiades Gazetteer View all →