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Socoh

cityOld TestamentSamaria1 verse
Today Khirbet Shuweikat er RasCountry IsraelCoordinates 32.342, 35.032

Socoh is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Samaria in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet Shuweikat er Ras. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.

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Archaeological Data
Occupation Phases
Chalcolithic4500 BCE – 3800 BCE
Middle Bronze Age2000 BCE – 1550 BCE
Middle Bronze Age II-III1750 BCE – 1550 BCE
Late Bronze Age I-II1550 BCE – 1200 BCE
Late Bronze Age1550 BCE – 1150 BCE
Late Bronze Age I1550 BCE – 1400 BCE
Late Bronze Age II1400 BCE – 1200 BCE
Iron Age I1150 BCE – 980 BCE
Iron Age IIa-b980 BCE – 720 BCE
Iron Age II980 BCE – 539 BCE
Iron Age III (Persian)539 BCE – 333 BCE
Hellenistic333 BCE – 63 BCE
Early Roman63 BCE – 70 CE
Roman63 BCE – 324 CE
Late Roman70 CE – 324 CE
Byzantine324 CE – 638 CE
UnitoAssyrianGovernance, Villages to Empires Dataset (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732

Biblical History

The northern Socoh, located in the territory of Samaria, is referenced in 1 Kings 4:10 as part of the district administered by Ben-Hesed, one of Solomon's twelve regional governors. This administrative list reflects the sophisticated centralized governance Solomon established to supply the royal court and support the standing army. The district of Socoh (or Hepher) in the northern highlands fell within the territory distributed among these appointed officials, each responsible for provisioning the palace for one month of the year. This particular Socoh is distinguished from its southern namesake in Judah and lies in the hill country of Manasseh, in the region west of Shechem. The political geography reflected in 1 Kings 4 shows Solomon's kingdom extending over both traditional Israelite tribal territories and formerly Canaanite regions, with appointed governors overseeing non-tribal administrative units, a departure from the older tribal structures that would later contribute to tensions between the northern and southern regions of the kingdom.

Archaeological & Historical Notes

The northern Socoh is identified with Khirbet Shuweikat er-Ras, situated in the northern Samarian hills in what is now the northern West Bank. Surface surveys in the region have noted Iron Age material at the site, consistent with occupation during the Solomonic administrative period described in 1 Kings 4. The Manasseh Hill Country Survey, conducted by Israeli archaeologists over several decades, has documented numerous Iron Age sites in this region, providing context for the network of towns under Solomonic governance. The proliferation of sites with the name Socoh (meaning "to enclose" or possibly related to thorny shrubs) across Judah and Samaria has occasionally caused confusion in identification, but topographic analysis generally supports this location for the northern variant.

Verse Appearances (1)

References

  1. Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
  2. OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
  3. Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
  4. Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
  5. Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
  6. Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]

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