Baal-shalishah
Baal-shalishah is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Samaria in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet Sirisye. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Baal-shalishah is the origin point of a remarkable miracle story in the Elisha cycle, appearing once in 2 Kings 4:42–44. A man from Baal-shalishah came to the prophet Elisha bringing "bread of the firstfruits", twenty loaves of barley bread and fresh grain, as an offering, likely intended for the guild of prophets at Gilgal. Elisha commanded that it be set before the one hundred men who were present and fed from it. When his servant protested that twenty loaves could not possibly feed a hundred men, Elisha declared: "Thus says the LORD, they shall eat and have some left." Indeed, the bread proved sufficient and there was even food left over, in accordance with the word of the LORD. The story is remarkable not only for the miracle itself but for its structural parallel with the later feeding miracles of Jesus (Mark 6:30–44; John 6:1–14), which New Testament scholars have long recognized as a conscious fulfillment and amplification of the Elisha tradition. Baal-shalishah was located in the hill country of Ephraim in the region of Sharuhen or Shalishah (1 Sam. 9:4), a fertile agricultural district whose first-fruits offering reflects the prosperity of the region.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Baal-shalishah is most commonly identified with Khirbet Sirisye (also spelled Seirisiya), located in the hill country of Samaria/Ephraim approximately fifteen kilometers northeast of Lydda (modern Lod). The identification rests on the phonetic similarity between Sirisye and the ancient name Shalishah, as well as the site's position in the general district associated with the land of Shalishah mentioned in 1 Samuel 9:4. Archaeological surveys of the region have documented Iron Age pottery consistent with Israelite occupation. The site has not been the subject of formal excavation, and our knowledge of it is based primarily on surface finds and the broader regional survey data from the Samarian highlands.
Verse Appearances (1)
2Kgs
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]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]