Biblical Gilgal: A Common Place Name or a Cult Site near Jericho?

Abstract

An analysis of the biblical references mentioning the place name Gilgal indicates that they all denote a single site—namely, the cult site located east of Jericho. References to Gilgal that seemingly allude to other sites resulted either from scribal errors or from scholarly misinterpretation of the biblical text. Moreover, gilgal as a noun for a kind of settlement never appears in the Bible. Hence, the plural form gilgals sometimes used by archaeologists to designate elliptical or round sites enclosed by a massive or narrow stone wall are misleading and should best be abandoned. On the contrary, Gilgal was the exclusive name of a major Israelite cult centre located near the main road that passed from Jericho to Transjordan. The cult site operated in the pre-monarchical and monarchical periods, but ceased to function in the late monarchical period, possibly during the reign of King Josiah.

Keywords:

• Gilgal
• Geliloth
• Bethel
• Tribal borders
• Jordan Valley
• Ascent of Adummim

Introduction

In the patriarchal narratives the cult site of Gilgal is absent; its first appearance is in the biblical story of the crossing of the Jordan near Jericho and the entrance to the Land of Canaan (Joshua 3–4). Gilgal is further mentioned in the story of Ehud (Judg 3:19), in the story-cycle of Saul (1 Samuel 7–15), in the Absalom rebellion story (2 Sam 19:16, 41), in the Elisha prophetic story-cycle (2 Kgs 2:1–2; 4:38) and in the prophecies of Amos (4:4; 5:4–5) and Hosea (4:15; 9:15; 12:12). It is presented in biblical historiography as an important cult centre from the Israelite crossing of the Jordan onward and functioned in the monarchical period as a major cult centre of the Northern Kingdom. After the downfall of the Northern Kingdom, it disappeared from the biblical historiography of the late monarchical period.

Due to its importance in the biblical text, scholars often discussed the site of Gilgal and its cult, both in the pre-monarchical and the monarchical periods.¹ Obviously, it is not my intention to reiterate the many studies of Gilgal. My objective is more limited: to critically examine the suggestion recently supported by some scholars that gilgāl designates a certain type of site rather than a proper place name. To clarify this issue, I first present the problem under investigation and then discuss it in detail.

The debate over the name/term ‘Gilgal’ in biblical historiography

In his introduction to the article ‘Gilgal’ in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Wade Kotter (1992: 1022) described this toponym as a common place name in the Land of Israel and observed that in almost all occurrences, it is prefixed with the definite article (haggilgāl) or with the definite article and preposition (baggilgāl). Kotter interpreted its name as ‘circle (of stones)’ and suggested that ‘[t]he MT refers to at least three, and perhaps as many as five distinct locations by this name’. He then examined in detail the assumed five places that are named Gilgal, but did not reach a definite conclusion concerning their number (1992). Surprisingly, Kotter ignored the suggestion proposed by Kurt Galling (1943: 141–155; 1945: 21–25), who, after a long and detailed discussion, suggested that there was only one site named Gilgal in Israel in the pre-monarchical and monarchical periods. Galling further demonstrated that all the references to Gilgal that seemingly denote other sites had resulted from either scribal errors or scholarly misinterpretation of the biblical text.

Although most scholars posited that analysis of the biblical texts indicates the existence of several sites called by the name Gilgal, a few scholars supported Galling’s suggestion, according to which all biblical references of Gilgal denote a single place, namely, the site located east of Jericho (Kraus 1951: 182; Langlamet 1969: 13; de Vaux 1978: passim; Gesenius 1987: 215).

Before discussing in detail the debated issue of the number of different places called Gilgal in the Old Testament, I turn to mention some suggestions proposed by archaeologists who called certain types of sites discovered in surveys or unearthed in excavations by the name gilgal, thereby turning it from a place name to a general noun.

To the best of my knowledge, Pessah Bar-Adon (1972) was the first to suggest the use of gilgal as a common noun in his survey report from the Judaean Desert and the Plain of Jericho. Bar-Adon discovered round and elliptical compounds dated by their pottery to the Chalcolithic period and the Iron I–II. He posited that these compounds are of the type referred to in the biblical text as either gilgal or gelilōt, and suggested designating this type of site by the name gilgals (Bar-Adon 1972: 94).

Like Bar-Adon, Finkelstein (1990: 203–205) posited that gilgal was a common name derived from the shape of the site. He observed that all or most of the gilgals are mentioned in relation to the desert or the desert fringe, where round or elliptical sites enclosed by walls are common. On the basis of this assumption, he examined the possibility that Khirbet ed-Dawwara, a late 11th-century BCE fortified site that he excavated in the highlands of Benjamin, might also be identified as a gilgal. Finkelstein (1990: 205) cautiously concluded that Khirbet ed-Dawwara ‘could be Beth-aven, one of the Gilgals, or some other site the name of which has been forgotten during the ages’.²

Adam Zertal (2000: 240–259; 2023: 97–128, 258–268) greatly developed and expanded this line of thought. According to Zertal, gilgal was a common name of many sites with a round or elliptical contour, located in the Jordan Valley and the eastern Manasseh highlands. According to this hypothesis, gilgal denoted a type of settlement that might be detected in many places in the inheritance of Manasseh’s eastern hill country and the plains below them. Moreover, in his recently published posthumous book, Zertal presented five sites that he called ‘foot-shaped enclosures’ and that he considered to be a sub-group within the many other gilgals distributed in the Ephraim and Manasseh tribal inheritances (Zertal 2023: 39–65, 86–96, 172–183). He postulated that these five sites, which are surrounded by narrow stone walls and when viewed from aerial perspectives appear foot-shaped, were deliberately built in the shape of God’s footstep.³ Although no cultic evidence was discovered in these compounds, Zertal treated them as cult sites built for seasonal cultic processions and activity. Thus, according to his reconstruction, not only was biblical gilgal a common name of many Iron Age sites, but beside the cult centre of Gilgal located near Jericho five other sites emerged, all bearing the same shape and function as Israelite cult places.⁴

The most recent metamorphosis in the interpretation of biblical Gilgal appears in an article by Yoel Elitzur on ‘[t]he meaning of “Gilgal”’ (2019). Elitzur not only accepted the multiple gilgal hypothesis, but also suggested that biblical gilgal was an appellation for a region (ibid.: 335–336). According to his analysis, gilgal was neither the name of a specific settlement in any biblical context nor the name of a cult site, but rather the name of several regions located in the Land of Israel. He concluded his article with the following statement (ibid.: 340–341):

לגלגה, that appears in the Bible 40 times, was not a place name, but rather a substantive that describes a topographic expanse. In most of its appearances, the intent is to the expanse to the east of Jericho, between Jericho and the Jordan. The book of Joshua, however, also mentions a ‘Gilgal’ in the north of the land, and also ‘Gilgal’/‘Geliloth’ on the border between Judah and Benjamin, ‘opposite the ascent of Adummim’. … The ‘Gilgal’ on the border of Benjamin is to be identified with Mishor Adummim. It seems that ‘Gilgal’, like its parallel ‘Geliloth’, similar to ‘maʿagal’ and ‘kikkar’, means plain.

The multi-gilgal idea was recently supported by Bill Arnold (2022: 479) in his commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy: ‘Gilgal can be any stone enclosure, or “circle [of stones],” and the word begins not as a proper name but as a designation for a type of location, which only over time evolves into a proper name. Thus, as many as five different locations so named appear in the Old Testament’.

In what follows I first examine the crucial question of how many places were called Gilgal in the biblical literature. The result of this analysis is the key for assessing the veracity of the claim that Gilgal was a common place name in the Old Testament. If the claim of Galling and his followers that Gilgal in the biblical text was the name of a single site is verified, the common place name hypothesis, as well as the possibility that the term gilgals refers to many Iron Age sites, will be proven wrong. Conversely, if the claim that the biblical text refers to several places called Gilgal is verified, this would support the assumption that Gilgal was a common place name.

Before concluding the introduction, I should mention the problem of the identification of the site of ancient Gilgal. According to the biblical account (Josh 4:19), Gilgal was located ‘on the east border of Jericho’ (lit., ‘at the limit of the east of Jericho’). Josephus (Ant. V:19) places Gilgal about ten stadia (approximately two kilometres) east of Jericho; and Eusebius (Onom. 66:5–6) places Galgala two Roman miles (some three kilometres) from Jericho.⁵ Scholars have suggested various identifications for biblical Gilgal and Byzantine Galgala, but the archaeological soundings of all the proposed sites have proven these identifications wrong.⁶ To date, the exact location of Gilgal remains unknown. Thus, we are left with the biblical and Byzantine accounts of ancient Gilgal/Galgala as the exclusive clues for the discussion.⁷

Gilgal in the biblical texts

As stated above, scholars have suggested up to five different identifications for the Gilgal mentioned in the biblical text. They all agree that most of the biblical allusions to Gilgal refer to the site located east of Jericho. Thus, we should turn our attention to the other four controversial texts, which seemingly mention a different location. In what follows, I examine these four references in an effort to locate the Gilgal to which they refer.

1. Joshua 12:23

The simplest case among the four is that of Joshua 12:23, ‘king of Goiim at Gilgal’. Many commentators agree that ‘Gilgal’ in this verse emerged as the result of an early textual miscopy and, following the LXX version, rendered it ‘Galilee’, i.e., ‘king of Goiim of the Galilee’ (see, e.g., Noth 1971: 68; Fritz 1994: 127; Nelson 1997: 158). George Albert Cooke (1918: 114) explained the preference of the LXX over the MT as follows:

Gōyīm means nations, and cannot be the name of a town, while on the analogy of vv. 18, 22, 23a, in i.e. belonging to Gilgal must refer to a district; elsewhere, however, Gilgal is the name of a city. No doubt the LXX is right in reading Galilee; a comparison between xv. 7 and xviii. 17 shews how easily Gilgal and Galilee could be confused. So the reference here is to the king of the various nations or tribes of Galilee; cf. Is. ix 1 Galilee of the nations.

2. 2 Kings 2:1b–2

The text of 2 Kings 2:1b–2 reads as follows: ‘Elijah and Elisha were going (ךְֶליּו) from Gilgal (לגּלגּה-ןמ). Elijah said to Elisha: “Stay here, please, for YHWH has sent me to Bethel.” … So they went down to Bethel (לא-תיבּ וּדריּו)’.

Assuming that the Gilgal mentioned is located near Jericho, there is ostensibly a lack of accord between the statement that the two prophets ‘were going from Gilgal’ and the subsequent statement that they ‘went down to Bethel’, as the latter is located high above the former. For this reason, some scholars posited that the prophets proceeded from a certain place called Gilgal located in the highlands, high above Bethel, and from there went down to Bethel (see, e.g., Sellin 1917: 13–14; Gevaryahu 1965: 489–490; Gray 1970: 473–474; Cogan and Tadmor 1988: 31; Kotter 1992: 1023). However, the progressing of Elijah and Elisha from an unknown site called Gilgal located in the highlands of Ephraim does not conform to all that we know of Gilgal and of Elisha’s operations according to his story-cycle.

Galling (1943: 154 n. 1) already suggested that ‘[e]s ist aber dabei zu beachten, das דרי ursprünglich ein Wort mit ambivalenter Bedeutung ist, d.h “steigen” als “hinab” (so im Alten Testament gewöhnlich), aber auch als “hinauf”’. He then presented several examples of this usage (i.e., Judg 11:37; 15:11; 2 Sam 5:17), adding that a similar use of דרי is known from Ugaritic. Godfrey Rolles Driver (1957) discussed this usage in detail and demonstrated that in numerous biblical references, דרי (‘to go down’) refers to going uphill, while הלע (‘to go up’) refers to going downhill.⁸ Thus, for example, Jephthah’s daughter states (Judg 11:37) םירהה-לע יתּדריו הכלאו (‘and I will go and go down into the mountains’); and when the Philistines went up in search of David (2 Sam 5:17), דודּ עמְשׁיּו הדוּצמּה-לא דריּו (‘and David heard and went down to the stronghold’). Driver (1957: 76) then speculated that this exceptional use of the two verbs depends on the direction of the travel: הלע refers to going downhill when the journeys take place in a northerly direction, and דרי denotes going uphill when the journeys take place in a southerly direction.

Hans-Christoph Schmitt (1972: 158–161) accepted this explanation in his discussion of Gilgal’s place in the Elisha story-cycle. He concluded his analysis as follows: ‘so dass auch dieser Befund unsere Gleichsetzung des Gilgal von 2,1 und 4,38 mit dem im Jordangraben gelegenen Gilgal bei Jericho bestätigt’ (p. 161; cf. Nielsen 1959: 22 n. 1).

Evidently, the Gilgal mentioned in verse 1 of the Elisha story joins the many other references to the cult site located near Jericho.

3. Deuteronomy 11:30

The text of Deuteronomy 11:30 relates the location of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal as follows: ‘Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh?’ This long description of the two mountains’ location is perplexing and requires clarification. The best way to analyse it is to divide the text into five parts, to discuss each part in its own right, and to then return to the account as a whole and suggest a solution to the account’s formation.

1. Gerizim and Ebal are located ‘beyond the Jordan’ from the standpoint of the speaker (Moses), who stayed at the time in southern Transjordan.

2. The two mountains are located ‘west of the road toward the going down of the sun’. This road should undoubtedly be identified as the main route that passed westward from Adam (Tell ed-Damiyeh), across the Jordan, toward Shechem (as per the early identification of Sellin 1917: 5). The suggestion that the text refers to a north–south road (as per Driver 1906: 132–133; Galling 1943: 23; Nielsen 1959: 42–43; Weinfeld 1991: 452–453; Christensen 2001: 228) is textually and geographically unlikely.

3. The designation ‘in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah’ clearly refers to the Jordan Valley, where the Canaanites dwell according to some biblical texts (Num 13:29; Josh 11:3).

4. Scholars debate the relation of Gerizim and Ebal to Gilgal that is mentioned in the text (‘over against Gilgal’). The solution to Gilgal’s identification depends on the integrity of the text in v. 30 and is discussed below.

5. The words ‘beside the oak of Moreh’ points to the region of Shechem, as indicated by Genesis 12:6 (‘Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh’). The sacred tree near Shechem was indeed located ‘beside’ Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

Given the conflicting locations between the accounts in parts (a), (b) and (e) and that of part (c), many scholars have observed that the text of v. 30 emerged in two stages (as already posited by Sellin 1917: 5–7). The location of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal near Shechem fits well their identification beyond the Jordan, west of the Adam–Shechem route and the oak of Moreh. In contrast, the two mountains’ location is alien to the Jordan Valley, where the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah is situated. In this light, Sellin (ibid.: 5) posited that Gilgal was part of the original text and that only the words ‘who live in the Arabah’ were interpolated to the text. However, as Gilgal that is ostensibly located on the route to Shechem is not mentioned anywhere else in the biblical account, we should best connect it to the interpolation and identify it with the well-known cult site located near Jericho. Its location naturally aligns with the Jordan Valley, the seat of the Canaanites according to a few biblical references (see above).

With this background in mind, I follow the suggestion of those scholars who posited that the original text included the account ‘[a]re they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road toward the going down of the sun, beside the oak of Moreh?’ and that the words ‘in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, over against Gilgal’ were interpolated by a late editor (see Nielsen 1959: 42–43; L’Hour 1962: 167; Langlamet 1969: 83–84; Eissfeldt 1970: 93, 96–97; Mayes 1981: 218–219; Rofé 1988: 24). In the words of Richard Nelson (2002: 141): ‘[T]his is most likely an attempt to (re)locate Gerizim and Ebal and the ceremony associated with them into the neighborhood of Gilgal. Verse 30b invites a rereading of v. 30a to understand it as situating the mountains themselves (rather than the “road to the west”) in the Jordan Arabah’. By inserting these words into the text, the late editor sought to garble the cultic reference to Gerizim and Ebal and to link the account to the Israelite cult site of Gilgal, where the Israelites crossed the Jordan River.⁹ Moreover, Nielsen observed that in response to this effective interpolation, the Samarians later inserted the words םכש לומ (‘opposite Shechem’) at the end of this verse, in order to affirm the authenticity of the original account. In his words (Nielsen 1959: 41):

Just as the words ‘mul hag-Gilgal’ must be considered an attempt to deprive the Shechemites of the ritual of Dt. 11,29f., … the words ‘mul shechem’ represent an attempt to regain the tradition for the sacred places of the Samaritans. ‘Mul hag-Gilgal’ together with the words ‘haj-jōshēbh baʿArābhāh’ are evidently intended to move the scene of the solemn covenant-making between Israel and the Lord away from Shechem, down to the plains of Jericho. This procedure may originate in animosity against Shechem, or it may be due to literary harmonization.

4. Joshua 15:7 and 18:17

The last reference to Gilgal appears in the context of the border delineation between the inheritances of Judah and Benjamin. The line of the border is drawn twice: once as the northern border of Judah and a second time as the southern border of Benjamin. In many details, the two accounts are in full accordance. They diverge, however, regarding the section that is decisive for the present discussion, where Gilgal is mentioned in the account of Judah’s northern border and Geliloth in that of Benjamin’s southern border. Therefore, I examine each account in its own right—first that of Judah and then that of Benjamin. Next, I proceed to compare them and draw conclusions concerning the authenticity of the two conflicting accounts.

Josh 15:7: ‘And the border went from the Valley of Achor up to Debir and northwards, turning toward Gilgal, which is over against the ascent of Adummim, which is on the south side of the river. And the border passed along to the waters of En Shemesh, and the goings out thereof were at En Rogel.’

According to the account in vv. 5b–6, after Judah’s southern border passed the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben, which is located in the Valley of Achor, it reached an unknown place called Debir, and then turned northward toward Gilgal. The latter is the well-known cult site, located east of Jericho, which (due to its fame) serves as a point of departure for the description of the next stage, the ascent of Adummim. On the one hand, the latter toponym was located ‘over against’ Gilgal; and on the other hand, it passed along the south side of ‘the river’ (לחָנּל בגֶנּמ). ‘The river’, with the definite article, is no doubt Wadi Qelt, which flows perennially from the Judaean Hills, passes south of Jericho, and reaches the Jordan River. Hence, the ascent of Adummim is the steep slope that arose from the plain of Jericho up to the region of Jerusalem; its rock formation is rich in iron oxide (for more details, see Elitzur 2019: 337).¹⁰

What remains unclear in this account is whether the borderline reached Gilgal or (most likely) proceeded in its direction toward Wadi Qelt and then turned westward in the direction of the next border point, the waters of En Shemesh (שׁמשׁ ןיע-ימ). The latter spring is identified with ʿEin el-Ḥōḍ, east of the village of el-ʿAzariyeh (Kallai 1986: 120). From this point, the border proceeded to En Rogel, identified with Bir ʾAyūb, south of Jerusalem.

In sum, although Gilgal was probably located beyond the southern borders of Judah,¹¹ when the scribe delineated Judah’s border he still referred to the well-known cult site as a key locator in his border delineation.

Josh 18:17: ‘And it was drawn to the north, and went out to En Shemesh, and went out to Geliloth, which is over against the ascent of Adummim, and it went down to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben.’

There are two main differences between the accounts of Benjamin’s southern and Judah’s northern borders: Geliloth takes the place of Gilgal in the former account and the ‘river’ that in Judah’s border account is located north of the ascent of Adummim is missing in Benjamin’s border delineation. The omission might easily be explained by the essential role held by the river (Wadi Qelt) in the drawing of the ascending border, as opposed to its redundancy in the outlining of the descending border. In contrast, the difference between Gilgal and Geliloth is significant and requires explanation.

The singular noun gelilah (‘district’) appears once in Ezek 47:8, and the plural form gelilōt (‘districts’) is mentioned four times in the Bible (in Josh 13:2, Josh 22:10–11 and Joel 4:4). In fact, whereas in the border delineation (Josh 18:7) Geliloth is a place name, in all other references it appears as a noun. Moreover, all the references to gelilah/gelilōt are dated to the exilic–post-exilic period. Ezekiel’s prophecy is dated to the late exilic period. The account of ‘the land that remains’ (Josh 13:2–6) is a post-Deuteronomistic composition inserted into its present place between vv. 1 and 7 and apparently dated to the early Persian period (Smend 1971; 1983). The story of the erection of the altar of witness near the Jordan River (Josh 22:9–34) is a priestly work dated to the early Persian period (see, recently, Dinur 2017, with earlier literature). Although scholars debate the dating of the Book of Joel, a Persian-period context is broadly supported (e.g., Myers 1962: 191–192; Weiser 1967: 106; Wolff 1977: 4–5; Barton 2001: 15). Thus, not only is a place name with the meaning of ‘districts’ odd,¹² but all other references to this noun are dated to the post-exilic period. Moreover, a textual mistake was made in the next verse of Benjamin’s border (v. 18), where הברעָה is rendered in place of הברעה תיב.

Cumulatively, this data suggests that gelilōt is merely a scribal miscopy for the original gilgal—a miscopy that occurred no earlier than the Persian period, after this noun was introduced to the Hebrew language.

Discussion

My analysis of Gilgal in the biblical literature supports the conclusions of Galling and his followers, according to which all the biblical references to Gilgal denote a single place, located east of Jericho. Gilgal was a national cult centre of the Kingdom of Israel, and in several references its name appears alongside that of Bethel (1 Sam 7:16; 2 Kgs 2:1–2; Hos 4:15; 12:12; Amos 4:4; 5:4–5). Bethel, located in the highlands, was the seat of a national temple (see Amos 7:13) and the place where the golden calf, the animal sacred to the Storm God, represented the God of Israel in his temple.

The form and nature of the cult site at Gilgal, however, is less clear. The site was located out of town, 1–2 km from Jericho, the central town in this region, within an arid zone settled by a few small villages. The road that passed nearby crossed the Jordan River and connected the Kingdom of Israel to the Israelite and Moabite settlements in Transjordan. The establishment of Gilgal as a national Israelite cult centre probably resulted from its location on this important road and its importance for the pastoral nomads who lived in the periphery of the kingdom. As each cult place needs a story that explains to the believers the background of its sanctity, Gilgal’s hieros logos was connected to the legend of the crossing of the Jordan in the process of occupying the land. According to the story of the Book of Joshua, twelve stones were set in the midst of the Jordan, over the place where the Israelites crossed the river (v. 9), and another twelve stones were transferred from the Jordan River and erected in the site of Gilgal (vv. 8, 20).¹³ Obviously, the date of the erection of the large stones in the cult place of Gilgal and the idea underlying the erection of the twelve stones (assuming that this was indeed their number) remains unknown.

The story of Ehud (Judges 3) indicates how God was represented at Gilgal. This story relates that Ehud sacrificed the offering (החנִמ) before the hewn images (םיליספּה) located at Gilgal (Judg 3:18–19), entered Jericho and killed the Moabite king (Eglon) in his palace, and then escaped, passed through the site of the hewn images and fled to the wooded region of Mount Ephraim (התריעְשּׂה).¹⁴ The presence of the God of Israel in the place seems to have been reflected in the stone pillars, which were considered the divine images of God in his sacred place.

The way the stone pillars were distributed at Gilgal remains unknown. Many scholars defined the name Gilgal as ‘a circle of stone’ or as ‘a mound of stones’.¹⁵ Unfortunately, there is no evidence in the biblical text of the way the stone pillars were distributed and of how the altar/s was/were set in between the pillars.¹⁶ As the location of the site of ancient Gilgal remains unknown, it is impossible to establish the site’s internal organisation in antiquity.

The biblical literature frequently mentioned sacrifice in Gilgal (1 Sam 10:8; 11:15; 13:9; 15:12–15, 21; Hos 12:12; Amos 4:4). Note in particular Hosea 12:12a^b–b: ‘If in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls (םירוְשׁ), their altars also shall be like stone heaps on the furrows of the field’. The plural form ‘altars’ and the sacrifices of bulls indicate the importance of the cult site in the 8th century BCE. The references to ‘your tithes’ (םכיתֹרשׂעמ) collected at the cult site (Amos 4:4) also indicate its centrality in the kingdom. Unfortunately, these are the only details available for reconstructing the nature of the site in the monarchical period.

Unlike Bethel, Gilgal is absent from the account of Josiah’s reform (2 Kings 23). Thus, its fate in the late monarchical period, after it was transferred to the Kingdom of Judah during the time of Josiah, remains unknown.

Gilgal is mentioned 39 times in the Bible,¹⁷ and with one exception (Josh 5:9), it always appears with the definite article (לגְּלגּה). Like Gilgal, Mizpah of Benjamin is prefixed 38 times with either the definite article or the definite article and a preposition, and only once without it (Hosea 5:1). Other examples of the addition of the definite article to place names are Gibeah, Ramah, Ai, Chephirah (Josh 9:17; 18:26) and Gebim (Isa 10:31), all located in the district of Benjamin. It is possible that these renderings reflect the way their names were pronounced in early times, leading the scribes to render these common pronunciations in the texts they composed.

Finally, I must comment in this light on the term gilgal, which sometimes appears in biblical archaeological studies, particularly in the works of Israeli archaeologists. These scholars apply the plural designation gilgals to elliptical or round sites enclosed by a massive or narrow stone wall and located in the Jordan Valley and the nearby highland regions (for details, see above, ‘The debate over the name/term “Gilgal” in biblical historiography’). Yet, as all the biblical references to Gilgal denote a single site, and as no noun gilgal is mentioned in the Bible,¹⁸ the use of the plural form gilgals is wholly erroneous and should best disappear from the scientific literature.

Alongside Gilgal, a site called Beth Gilgal appears once as a Second Temple name of a place located north of Jerusalem (Neh 12:28–29). Two other sites called Gilgal are mentioned in Hellenistic- and Roman-period texts. 1) The First Book of Maccabees (9:2) describes the campaign of Bacchides along ‘the Gilgal road’ and his siege and conquest of Messalot in Arbela, a place located near the Sea of Galilee. However, on the basis of Josephus’ account (Ant. XII:421), some scholars have claimed that the place name ‘Gilgal’ emerged due to miscopy, and have thus rendered the text ‘the Galilee road’ (cf. Josh 12:23). 2) The documents of Babatha from the Cave of Letters mention אלגלג, located near the south-eastern shore of the Dead Sea (for references, see Yadin et al. 1992: 391).¹⁹ Thus, as far as we know, there was only one site called Gilgal in the monarchical period, and the use of this name for other places was quite rare in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods.

To conclude, the above analysis of the biblical references mentioning the place name Gilgal indicates that they all denote a single site—namely, the cult site located east of Jericho. References to Gilgal that seemingly mention other sites resulted either from scribal errors or from scholarly misinterpretation of the biblical text. Moreover, gilgal as a noun for a kind of settlement never appears in the Bible. Hence, the plural form gilgals sometimes used by archaeologists to designate elliptical or round sites enclosed by a massive or narrow stone wall are misleading and should best be abandoned. On the contrary, Gilgal was the exclusive name of a major Israelite cult centre located near the main road that passed from Jericho to Transjordan. The cult site operated in the pre-monarchical and monarchical periods and ceased to function in the late monarchical period, possibly during the reign of King Josiah.

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Notes on contributors

Nadav Naʾaman

Nadav Naʾaman: Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University

Notes

1 For discussions of the biblical narratives of Gilgal, see von Gall 1898: 78–83; Sellin 1917: 3–21; Galling 1943; 1945; Kraus 1951; Gevaryahu 1965; Langlamet 1969; de Vaux 1978: 598–608; Otto 1984, with earlier literature; Kotter 1992; Dozeman 2015: 281–283, 295–301.

2 For a different interpretation of the site of Khirbet ed-Dawwara, see Naʾaman 2012.

3 For descriptions of the sites, see Zertal 2008: 111–112; 2023: 46–50, 88–96, 179–183; Zertal and Ben-Yosef 2009; Zertal and Bar 2017: 234–239, 301–303, 328–331; Bar, Farhi and Shamir 2023; Bar, Jacobi and Shamir 2023, with earlier literature. For an aerial view of some sites, see Zertal 2023: photographs between pp. 96 and 97. For a detailed discussion, see ibid.: 52–183.

4 In a recently published article, Bar, Jacobi and Shamir (2023) demonstrated that one of the sites included by Zertal among his five Iron Age foot-shaped enclosures—the site of Bedhat esh-Shaʿab, a site 1.2 hectares in area, located near the modern village of Argaman—was in fact constructed in the Early Roman period.

5 For the text of Eusebius, see Freeman-Grenville, Chapman and Taylor 2003: 41.

6 For the archaeological search of the site of ancient Gilgal, see, e.g., Muilenburg 1955; Bächli 1967; Weippert 1971: 22 n. 49; Bennett 1972; Landes 1975; Schwartz and Amar 2000.

7 Upon the rise of Christianity, a church was constructed at Gilgal/Galgala, within which the twelve stones were erected, as indicated by the Madaba Map (Donner 1992: 46, no. 26 and the attached map). Thus, the church may have been built on top of the site of ancient Gilgal, thereby obliterating its remains.

8 For the list of references, see Koehler, Baumgartner and Stamm 1994 with earlier literature. Kinnier Wilson (1962: 173–174) observed that a similar expression of going down in reference to going up is known from Akkadian.

9 Zertal (2000: 251–255; 2008: 111–112; 2023: 93–95) identified the ‘Gilgal’ mentioned in Deut 11:30 with the early Iron Age site of el-ʿUnuq, located near Wadi Farʿah. The latter is an elliptical site, 1.5 hectares in size, enclosed by a low stone wall that faces Jabal al-Kabir, on top of which Zertal tentatively identified the oak of Moreh. However, the early Iron Age site of el-ʿUnuq is irrelevant for establishing the location of Gilgal mentioned in Deut 11:30, a text composed in the context of the Judahite-Samarian controversy on the location of the blessing and cursing sites in the exilic or early Persian period.

10 In the course of his survey of the mountainous regions, Zertal (2023: 172–183; see Bar 2023: 271) studied the site of Shaʿab Romani, located in Wadi el-Makkuk, ca. 10 km northwest of Jericho. As the contour of this site appears shaped like a foot, he hypothesised that like all the other foot-shaped enclosures he had discovered, this site too was cultic and was erected in imitation of the foot of God. Even though no evidence of cult was discovered at site and, moreover, its location is far from the line of Judah’s southern border (which ran south of Wadi Qelt), he nevertheless identified it as the Gilgal mentioned in Josh 15:7, thereby dismissing the identification of Gilgal mentioned in this verse with the cult site located east of Jericho.

11 Notably, in all biblical accounts, Gilgal belongs to the territory of Benjamin, rather than Judah.

12 For this reason, Noth (1971: 108) suggested to correct the text and read it as a noun (תוֹלילגּה).

13 Joachim Krause (2014: 248–250) suggested that v. 9 belongs to a later literary stratum than that of vv. 8 and 20.

14 ריעֵש (Seir) is probably a descriptive designation for the wooded mountainous areas—the forested region to which Ehud escaped after the assassination (Naʾaman 1986: 284 n. 45).

15 For a catalogue of scholars’ definitions, see Elitzur 2019: 330–332.

16 Gustaf Dalman (1919) collected all the available textual and archaeological evidence in an effort to reconstruct the role of the twelve stones at Gilgal, but finally admitted that ‘[s]o bleibt die zwölf Steine von Gilgal in bezug auf Herkunft und Stellung ohne sichere Deutung’.

17 As observed above, the text of Josh 12:23 is garbled and should be rendered ‘king of Goiim at Galilee’.

18 The gilgal referred to in Isa 28:28 is a by-form of galgal (‘wheel’).

19 For references to Gilgal in the rabbinical literature, see Reeg 1989: 182–183, with earlier literature.