There was a hill between Gibeah and Ramah, once called "Sechu," which for its characteristics could become the future site of Ezekiel's Millennial Temple. Another possibility is what Samuel called "the hill of God."

There is a dispute over the location of Samuel's home town, Ramah. There was definitely a Ramah at modern Ar-Ram (See Modern Map 2). But Catholic tradition (not very reliable) has it that Samuel's Ramah was modern Nabi Samwil, to the west of Tel El-Ful (not shown on Map 2). Nabi Samwil has also been pegged by tradition as Samuel's holy site of Mizpah simply because it has been wrongly equated with Ramah. The problem is, there is no Biblical indication that either Ramah or Mizpah were west of Jerusalem, whereas any Biblical texts which shed light on the location of Ramah indicate Ar-Ram. The Biblcal Ramah was not just a city and its hill, but also a wider region that included Gibeah (1 Samuel 22:6). See Nabi Samwil versus Ar-Ram on this Satellite image; see the green number 28 versus green number 34.

When King Saul was out to kill David, he sent men to apprehend him. David was staying at Naioth of Ramah at the time, with his ally, the prophet Samuel. When Saul's men arrived either at Naioth or just before it, they saw Samuel and his men prophesying, with the result that Saul's men began to prophesy uncontrollably in the Spirit of God, wherefore Saul's men became useless for Saul's evil mission. Saul sent more men and the same happened. He sent yet a third group but the same occurred. Then an angry Saul decided to go himself to Naioth. When he "came to the great well in Sechu" (1 Samuel 19:22), he asked for David. But Saul too started to prophesy...all the way to Naioth (v 23).

Was Sechu and/or Naioth, therefore, a holy place? Apparently, yes. But was it the future site of the Millennial Temple, which Ezekiel calls the "house"? Naioth happens to mean "house," the root of which is, "to rest." Strong's Concordance defines the rest in the sense of "celebrate with praise." Therefore, Naioth sure does sound like a perfect name for the place that will be the House of God. We are told that Naioth was a school for the prophets, implying that the village was made holy by the holiness of the prophets. But perhaps it should be the other way around...men were made into prophets by the holiness of the site.

Note that there is "a great well" at Sechu, where its waters may turn out to be the source of the Temple River. Strong's Concordance defines "Sechu" as "to surmount, an observatory." Thus, Sechu was a hill with an advantageous view, very possibly toward both the Mediterranean and the Dead sea. Naioth may have been a village on that hill.

Much earlier, before Saul was king -- as part of the very process of his being Made the king -- he was sent by Samuel, under the direction of God, to a place merely called the "hill of God" (1 Samuel 10:5). When Saul got there, he met prophets coming down from a so-called "high place," and he too started to prophesy...and thereby "turned into another man" (v 6). That is, Saul became a man of God.

Years after Saul prophesied at/beside the Hill of God, he came to prophesy a second time at Sechu, as described above when seeking David's life. Could this Hill of God have been Sechu, therefore? Perhaps "hill of God" was it's name prior to its being popularized as "Sechu." Certainly, there is logic in God causing Saul to prophesy the second time in the very same place that was in the first instance God's confirmation of his kingship, as God's slap in Saul's face, for Saul was out to kill the next God-ordained king of Israel in that second instance. In other words, my theory is that God caused Saul and his men to prophesy there repeatedly to remind Saul that he himself had been given His gift of prophecy when he was first made king.

The "hill of God" could not have been Gibeah, although the publishers of the NIV Bible were so confident that it was that they actually translated the phrase as "Gibeah of God." It's true that the Biblical word for "hill" and "Gibeah" are the same, but this only means that Gibeah means "hill," not that the "hill of God" should be translated "Gibeah of God." My Hebrew interlinear translates simply, "hill of God," without jumping to conclusions.

In verse 26, not many verses after the phrase, "hill of God," we learn that Gibeah was the home of Saul. Yet Samuel told Saul to go to the "hill of God" as though it were not his home town: "Afterwards you will come to the hill of God where there is a fort of the Philistines..." (v 5). If Saul lived on that hill, would Samuel have needed to identify it by describing what was upon it? Or, wouldn't Samuel have said, "Afterwards you will come to your home," if indeed that "hill of God" was Gibeah? This assures me that the Hill of God was not Gibeah, even though many historians, archaeaologists, or Biblical commentators have been led to believe that the two are one and the same.

Surely, Saul knew well the vicinity of his home town for miles around, wherefore he knew where the Philistine was located. Therefore, Samuel was not giving Saul directions to the hill that donned the fort, but rather was indicating which of the multiple hills of worship he wanted Saul to go to. And we can gather that it was God who wanted Saul to go there. Why? Was it the future site of the Millennial Temple?

Archaeologists (see W. F. Albright) have uncovered a Philistine fortress on Tel El-Ful, and also because the Hill of God has been rashly equated with Gibeah, the latter is now said to have been at Tel El-Ful. Again, I disagree strongly with that reasoning. Tel El-Ful may or may not have been the Hill of God, but it was not Gibeah.

Samuel assembled nervous Israelites to a religious meeting at Mizpah (v 5), that he might speak a word of the Lord to them. When they arrived at Mizpah, the worried Israelites drew out water (v 6), and they fasted and confessed sins before the Lord. As soon as the Philistines learned that Samuel had assembled at Mizpah, they were provoked to the point of launching a military offensive against the Israelites. Logic would suggest that it was God's will for Samuel to provoke the Philistines to war, since it seems that it was God who asked the Israelites to assemble at Mizpah. But why did the Philistines attack so suddenly when they did, as soon as they saw Israelites on the hill of Mizpah? Was there a Philistine fort there??? In other words, had the Israelites gathered on any other place, the Philistines would have considered it merely a religious meeting, but if the Israelites had gathered at a fort which the Philistines had themselves built, then it would amount to a declaration of war.

"Mizpah" means "watchtower." Recall that "Sechu" means "watchtower" as well! Might the two names be derived from two different languages while signifying the same hill? Both Sechu and Mizpah were north of Gibeah. Zondervan places Mizpah north of Ramah, at modern Tell en-Nasbeh, eight miles north of Jerusalem, but this is erroneous and therefore not universally accepted.

Note that other Israelites met at Mizpah in earlier years, when they virtually wiped out their fellow-tribe of Benjamin (Judges 20). Both Ramah and Gibeah were in Benjamin, and so when we're talking Benjamin, we're talking the Holy High Square of Ezekiel 45 and 48...the so-called "sides of the north." Gibeah served as Benjamin's capital city during this war, where all of their 27,000 fighting men gathered (14-15). Because Mizpah was near the capital, the Israelite attackers gathered there. May we assume that they gathered there because the Philistine fort stood there in those days?

The city of Gibeah might have been on the east slope of the hill, for it says, "in front of Gibeah, at the rising of the sun" (Judges 20:43). The Bible happens to reveal a specific flat area at the eastern base of the Gibeah hill, called "Gibeah in the flat" (v 31). That is, part of Gibeah was on the eastern slope, and part of it was beyond the hill's base upon some flat land (I don't know what possessed the translators of the the NIV Bible to omit "in the flat"). In verse 33 we learn of a flat field that is situated still further out from the flat part of the city. The NIV strangley translated the Hebrew word for "field" as "west," and then put a footnote saying: "Some Septuagint manuscripts and Vulgate; the meaning for the Hebrew for this word is uncertain."

But the Hebrew word is not uncertain. It means, "a nude place" (Strongs #4629). The King James translators had the good sense to use "meadows." My Hebrew interliner translator used "plain." I have used, "field." Apparently, some ancient translators (of the Septuagint) were convinced that this bare land was on the west of Gibeah, wherefore they exercised some free license by translating the word, "west," and the NIV followed suit.

When the Israelites went against Gibeah on the third day, they feigned losing the battle in order to lure Benjamites out to the intersection of two roads. One of the roads was the main one leading north to Bethel (Judges 20:31) upon the mountain divide, and was therefore a near equivalent to the modern Nablis highway (See Nablis highway on (Modern Map 2 between Tel El-Ful and the airport). The other road forked off from the main road toward "Gibeah in the flat." Thus, as accessing Gibeah required a road of its own, we learn that the hill of Gibeah was not directly on the main highway. The question is, was the city east, or west, of the main highway?

Prior to the Israelite-Benjamite war, when a man and his concubine were walking north from Jerusalem to Ephraim -- on the highway to Bethel no doubt -- they had to "turn aside" to get to Gibeah (Judges 19:15). While this again proves that Gibeah was not on the main highway, it doesn't reveal whether Gibeah was on the east or west of that highway. But perhaps the Bible leaves a clue in the account of the Israelite-Benjamite war.

After the Israelites had feigned a retreat and thereby lured the Benjamites northward on the main highway (as far as to Baal-tamar), they turned on the Benjamites and ran them back south upon the highway (Judges 20:42-45). Verse 43 tells us that they killed the fleeing Benjamites until they were "in front of Gibeah, at the rising of the sun." That sounds like they were to the east of Gibeah when they were on the highway, meaning of course that Gibeah was to the west of the highway. Note that Tel El-Ful (on Map 2) is, to the contrary, to the east of the Nablis highway, perhaps another reason not to equate Tel-El-Ful with Gibeah. The question now is, where on the west side of the highway was Gibeah?

When Saul, prior to his becoming King of Israel, was sent by his father to find some missing donkeys, he left Gibeah and first went northwest into the hills, crossing over from Benjamin into Ephraim. He spent the second day in Ephraim as well, as far west as Shalim, about three miles straight west of modern Ar-Ram. On the third day, he came northeast and crossed the Ephraim-Benjamin border north of Ar-Ram (ancient Ramah). We know that Saul was north of Ar-Ram on that third day because he met Samuel at Zuph, just inside Ephraim.

On the fourth day, Samuel sent the king-to-be to the Hill of God. But before getting to the Hill of God, Samuel told Saul that he would arrive to the tomb of Rachel, "at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin" (1 Samuel 10:2). That is, on the Ephraim-Benjamin border. Knowing also that Rachel's bones were buried in the region of Ramah, according to Jeremiah 31:15 in conjunction with Matthew 2:18, we can discover that Saul was sent southward along the main highway into Benjamin. That is, the Hill of God was beyond the Benjamin border within the region of Benjamin, in the Holy Square.

Saul was then instructed by Samuel to continue onward to the great tree of Tabor, and while we don't know where this location was, I think it's obvious that it was along the highway, for Saul was to meet people going up to Bethel at this tree. And the way to Bethel was along the highway.

Saul was then told that he would come to the "hill of God" upon going still further (south). I note that there was a city at the Hill of God (1 Samuel 10:5), but it certainly wasn't Gibeah. When Saul got to the Hill, people recognized him and made mention of his father (v 11-12), yes, but this could just as easily suggest that Saul was very close to his hometown.

[Update February 2008 -- I have come to believe that none of the book of Judges may be Inspired (Jesus said that the Law and the Prophets were Inspired, but this doesn't include the historical books of the Bible, where mistakes and inconsistencies can be found), and that the writer of this war between Israelites and Benjamites was not correct to claim that it was God himself who caused the men to succeed against Benjaminites, to destroy them utterly for the sins of a few. I would rather believe that the Israelites were thieves and murderers, and that the writer of the account created a good "spin" on what truly took place when the Israelites stole the land of Benjamin. Just the same, the account can help us to locate Gibeah, which I now identify with al-Jib, the green #20 at this satellite map. I still tentatively identify Mizpah with Tel-el Ful, the green #39, to the southeast. End Update]

Because a Philistine fort was uncovered at Tel El-Ful, one might suggest that the Hill of God was that Hill of Beans (Tel El-Ful means "hill of beans"). But couldn't there have been another Philistine outpost on another hill nearby, as there was such a fort even at Geba (modern Al Jaba), according to 1 Samuel 13:3?

As for ancient Nob, it was a place mentioned rarely, and yet we find the Israelite priests living there in the latter years of Saul's life. Why were they living there? Was it a holy hill? The location seems unknown, except that Nehemiah and Isaiah both place it near Anathoth, modern Anata. The route taken in Isaiah 10:28-32 strongly implies that Nob was west of Anathoth, wherefore modern Shu'fat becomes a possibility (see Map 1).

There you have it, all of you who love logic puzzles. Can you guess which hill the Temple Hill will be? I hope that I have all my facts straight here, not being an expert on these matters by any means. I apologize for this anti-climactic finish wherein I do not identify the Millennial Temple hill.

The Palestinians, as representatives, perhaps, of the Philistines of old, are still in the throws of conquering that High Holy Hill of God in Arab East-Jerusalem. They even have their own hill of God in Ramallah (meaning the "Hill of Allah"), just north of the airport. When will they learn that YHWH is in ZION!?