Azekah

AZEKAH a city of the tribe of Judah. (Josh. 15.35.) It was situated in that part which was called Sephela (rendered by the LXX. τὴν πεδινὴν, τὸ πέδιον, and τὰ ταπεινὰ), which, according to Eusebius and St. Jerome, embraced all the country about Eleutheropolis, to the north and west. (Reland, Palaest. p. 187.) A village of this name existed in their day between Eleutheropolis and Aelia (Ib. p. 603); and the site of Shocoh, with which it is joined in 1 Sam. 17.1, is still preserved in the small ruined village of Shweikeh, in the south-east of Judaea, where the hill country declines towards the Plain of the Philistines. (Robinson, Bib. Res. vol. ii. pp. 343, 349.)