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Cabul: A Royal Gift Found

Hiram of Tyre scorned King Solomon’s offering of 20 cities—called Cabul

By Zvi Gal

After King Solomon constructed the Jerusalem Temple and his adjacent royal palace, he made a gift to Hiram, the Phoenician king who had supplied him not only with craftsmen for the project, but also with much timber and gold. Solomon’s gift: 20 towns in Galilee. But when Hiram inspected the towns, he didn’t like them. As a result, they were named Cabul-land. No one seems to know what “Cabul” means or why the name was appropriate to express Hiram’s dissatisfaction (1 Kings 9:10–14). I believe we have recently located Cabul in the Galilee. If we are correct, Hiram built […]

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Footnotes

1.

In this technique, used to give added strength to a wall, the long and short sides of the rectangular blocks are alternately laid parallel to the length of the wall.

2.

Slipping is a special treatment in which the potter covers the vessel’s body with red or orange color and thus creates a fine ware with a shiny surface.

Endnotes

1.

The survey was carried out in 1974–1983, on behalf of the Archaeological Survey of Israel, with the participation of G. Landaw, Y. Yotvar, A. Tavori, the late V. Kulmann and students of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies, University of Haifa. See Zvi Gal, Lower Galilee During the Iron Age, ASOR Dissertation Series 8 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992).

2.

Gal, “Cabul, Jiphtahel and the Boundary between Asher and Zebulun in the Light of Archaeological Evidence,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Palastina Vereins 101 (1985), pp. 114–127.

3.

The excavations are carried our on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa and with collaboration of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem.

4.

Gal, “The Lower Galilee in Iron Age II, Analyzing Survey Material and Its Historical Interpretation,” Tel Aviv 15–16 (1988–1989), pp. 56–64.

5.

James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to The Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), p. 280.

6.

Yigael Yadin et al., Hazor I (1959). Jerusalem Pl. LXXV; Hazor III–IV (1960). Jerusalem Pl. CCV.