Ziph
Ziph is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Negev in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet ez Zeifeh. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
This Ziph in the Negev appears in Joshua 15:24 as one of the cities of Judah in the southernmost district near the border of Edom. It is listed among a cluster of settlements in the extreme south of Judah, a region characterized by semi-arid terrain and proximity to the wilderness. The Negev Ziph should be distinguished from the more prominent Ziph in the Judean hill country associated with David. This southern settlement lay within the broader network of towns that defined the outer reaches of Judah's territorial claims, serving as part of the frontier zone between Israelite settlement and the Edomites to the south and east. Though it receives no narrative attention in Scripture beyond its appearance in the boundary list, the careful documentation of Negev towns in Joshua 15 reflects the comprehensive geographical knowledge preserved in the tribal allotments. These southern cities represented both the promise of land stretching to its fullest extent and the challenge of maintaining settlement in a harsh, resource-limited environment at the margins of the Judean heartland.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Negev Ziph is identified with Khirbet ez-Zeifeh, a ruin site in the central Negev highlands. Archaeological surveys of the Negev conducted by teams from the Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew University have documented numerous sites in this region with remains from the Iron Age, Nabataean, and Byzantine periods. Khirbet ez-Zeifeh has not been the subject of major systematic excavation, and knowledge of the site comes primarily from surface surveys. The broader Negev survey work has revealed that Iron Age Israelite presence extended throughout this seemingly inhospitable zone, supported by agricultural terracing, cisterns, and small fortified settlements, consistent with the biblical picture of settled towns in the southern wilderness.
Verse Appearances (1)
Josh
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]