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Timnah

cityOld TestamentJudea9 verses
Today Tel BatashCountry IsraelCoordinates 31.785, 34.910

Timnah is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Tel Batash. It appears across 9 verses in Scripture.

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Authority Records
Archaeological Data
Occupation Phases
Chalcolithic4500 BCE – 3800 BCE
Early Bronze Age II3050 BCE – 2850 BCE
Early Bronze Age IV/Middle Bronze Age I/Int. Bronze2500 BCE – 2000 BCE
Middle Bronze Age II-III1750 BCE – 1550 BCE
Late Bronze Age I1550 BCE – 1400 BCE
Late Bronze Age II1400 BCE – 1200 BCE
Late Bronze Age III1200 BCE – 1150 BCE
Iron Age I1150 BCE – 980 BCE
Iron Age IIa980 BCE – 830 BCE
Iron Age IIb830 BCE – 720 BCE
Iron Age IIc720 BCE – 539 BCE
Iron Age III (Persian)539 BCE – 333 BCE
UnitoAssyrianGovernance, Villages to Empires Dataset (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732Uppsala University, ANE Site Placemarks (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.6384044

Biblical History

Timnah at Tel Batash is most extensively documented in the Samson cycle of Judges 14-15, where it serves as the focal point of Israel's judge-deliverer's fateful entanglement with Philistia. Samson's repeated journeys to Timnah, first to negotiate a marriage, then to attend his wedding feast, generate the famous riddle contest ("Out of the eater came something to eat") and the subsequent unraveling of his first marriage when his Philistine wife betrayed his secret (Judges 14:5-20). The burning of Philistine grain fields, the retaliatory killing of Timnah's residents, and the cycle of escalating violence that followed all root in this single city. Timnah also appears in the territorial lists of Joshua, assigned to the tribe of Dan (Joshua 19:43), though Dan famously failed to hold much of its allotted land against Philistine pressure. In 2 Chronicles 28:18, Timnah is listed among cities captured by the Philistines during the reign of King Ahaz, demonstrating its continued strategic importance centuries later. Throughout Scripture, Timnah embodies the contested frontier between Israel and Philistia.

Archaeological & Historical Notes

Tel Batash has been one of the most thoroughly excavated sites in the Shephelah region of Israel. The Kelm-Mazar expedition uncovered ten major occupation strata spanning the Middle Bronze Age IIB through the Iron Age IIC (approximately 1650-600 BCE). Philistine occupation in the Iron Age I is evidenced by characteristic bichrome pottery, hearths, and domestic architecture. An Iron Age II destruction layer likely corresponds to the Assyrian campaigns of Tiglath-pileser III or Sennacherib. A significant olive oil production installation was also uncovered, reflecting the agricultural economy of the region. The site is now preserved as an Israeli national park.

Verse Appearances (9)

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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