Place · City
Eshtaol
Named in 7 verses across 2 books, first in Joshua 15:33.
In the Bible
All 7 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Joshua
- Joshua 15:33
These were in the foothills: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah,
- Joshua 19:41
The territory of their inheritance included Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir-shemesh,
Judges
- Judges 13:25
And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
- Judges 16:31
Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.
- Judges 18:2
So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.
- Judges 18:8
When the men returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “What did you find?”
- Judges 18:11
So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Narrow pass or recess, a town (Josh. 15:33) in the low country, the She-phelah of Judah. It was allotted to the tribe of Dan (Josh. 19:41), and was one of their strongholds. Here Samson spent his boyhood, and first began to show his mighty strength; and here he was buried in the burying-place of Manoah his father (Judg. 13:25; 16:31; 18:2, 8, 11, 12). It is identified with the modern Yeshua, on a hill 2 miles east of Zorah. Others, however, identify it with Kustul, east of Kirjath-jearim.