Debir, a district capital of the Judean monarchy which figures prominently in Joshua and Judges, was misidentified by the great William F. Albright, according to Professor Moshe Kochavi of Tel Aviv University. Professor Kochavi argues that he, not Albright has excavated the true site of Debir—at Khirbet Rabud, in the Judean hill country, twelve miles southwest of Hebron.
Since Albright’s classic excavation at Tell Beit Mirsim in the late twenties and early thirties—an excavation which fixed the basic outlines of Palestinian pottery chronology for all time—most ‘scholars have accepted Albright’s identification of Debir with Tell Beit Mirsim. For example, Yohanan Aharoni’s list of site identifications in The Land of the Bible (1967), gives Tell Beit Mirsim as Debir without the question mark that accompanies less certain identifications.
The correct identification is important not only because of the Debir stories in the Bible, but also because Debir fixes one of the boundaries of the tribe of Judah (Josh. 15:7).
Prior to its capture by the Israelites, Debir was the most significant Canaanite urban center south of Hebron. Debir is one of the few cities whose conquest by the Israelites is described in the Bible with considerable detail. Indeed, the Bible preserves two versions of its capture.
In one, the city is captured by Joshua himself (Josh. 10:38–40).
In the other tradition, found both in Joshua (15:15–19) and Judges (1:11–15), the conquest of Debir is associated with Caleb, who offers his daughter Achsah to whoever will capture the city. Othniel takes up the challenge, wins the city, and also Caleb’s daughter. Othniel also receives from his father-in-law some land in the Negev, presumably Debir and its environs, which he complains is useless because it has no water. So Caleb gives his daughter two springs or pools (Heb. gulot), to go with the land. These gulot play some part in the identification of Debir, as we shall see.
Later Debir is designated as a Levitical city, a city of refuge, where even one guilty of homicide could find protection (Josh. 21:15). As noted earlier, Debir also marks the western boundary of the tribe of Judah (Josh. 15:7).
These then are the Biblical references to Debir.
Albright’s identification of Tell Beit Mirsim as Debir was based largely on the fact that his archaeological evidence was consistent with the history of Debir as reflected in the Bible. Albright found one of the strata of ruins to be a large and important Canaanite city which had been destroyed by fire at the end of the 13th century B.C., no doubt the Israelite destruction. On top of this arose a poor settlement which was presumably the occupation of Othniel and Caleb’s daughter. The next layer in the Tell revealed a fortified city of the Judean monarchy, which accords with the Biblical designation of Debir as a Levitical city of refuge. Finally, there was a total destruction at Tell Beit Mirsim at the time of the Babylonian conquest, which is consistent with the absence of any later Biblical mention of Debir.
006However, there is one problem with Albright’s identification, which some scholars seemed to sweep under the rug. The Bible clearly tells us in several places that Debir is in the hill country of Judah (Josh. 11:21, Josh. 15:48, 50). Tell Beit Mirsim is west of Hebron in the area known in Biblical as well as modern times as the Shephelah, the low-rolling hills between the mountains of Judah that run through the center of the country and the costar plain that borders the Mediterranean Sea. What was Debir doing in the Shephelah? Moshe Kochavi’s answer is that Albright’s “Debir” is not Debir.a
Khirbet Rabud is in the hill country—and this appears to be the clinching element in his identification of the site as Biblical Debir. For Kochavi’s excavations have established that Khirbet Rabud’s archaeological history accords as well with the Biblical records of Debir as Albright’s Tell Beit Mirsim. On the basis of archaeological history, there is nothing which proves one site over the other, but the location of Khirbet Rabud in the hill country clearly strengthens the case for its identification as Debir, as against Tell Beit Mirsim.b
At Khirbet Rabud, Kochavi found an important walled city of the Canaanite period which was not only larger than Tell Beit Mirsim, but ancient Hebron, as well. Next, he found evidence of a later modest settlement which included a 10th century water cistern lined with lime plaster; this served as the settlement’s principal source of water. Then the Canaanite city wall was rebuilt, presumably when Debir became a Levitical city of refuge in the Judean monarchy. Kochavi also found evidence that the city had been destroyed by Sennacherib at the end of the 8th century, and again by Nebuchadnezzer in the early 6th century, at about the same time this Babylonian ruler destroyed Jerusalem. After this, there is no evidence of further urban settlement at Khirbet Rabud.
The water supply at Khirbet Rabud also seems to support Kochavi’s identification as against Albright’s. At Albright’s Tell Beit Mirsim, there are a number of wells which penetrate deeply into subterranean reservoirs. Albright identified these as the gulot or springs which Caleb gave to his daughter when she complained that the land he had given her was arid and without water. But the very number of these wells in the Tell Beit Mirsim area makes water seem less of a problem in that area. On the other hand, Khirbet Rabud itself is without wells (thus the early cistern to collect runoff water, which Kochavi found). But within a reasonable distance from Khirbet Rabud (about 2.5 kilometers north) are two wells—and only two—which could have been the “upper” spring and the “lower” spring which the Bible tells us Caleb gave his daughter when she complained of the 007aridity of the land he had given her (Josh. 15:19, Judges 1:15). Interestingly enough, these two wells in the Khirbet Rabud area have Arab names which include the designation “upper” and “lower” well. Has the ancient Biblical designation, “upper” and “lower,” referred to in Joshua and Judges, been thus preserved?
One other interesting point: In Hebrew consonantal spelling Debir is spelled DBR. Rabud is spelled RBD, which is Debir spelled backwards. Has the ancient Biblical name also been preserved in this way? We know that in many cases the modern Arabic name retains over the centuries the memory of the Biblical name. For example, the Arabic site of Beitun has been identified as Bethel and Seilun as Shiloh. Has Debir (DBR) somehow been preserved as Rabud (RBD)? No one can tell for sure. But this is another weight in the scales which suggests that this important archaeological site in the hill country of Judah has now been correctly identified as Debir.
(For further details, see M. Kochavi, “Khirbet Rabud = Debir,” Tell Aviv, Journal of the Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology, Vol. 1, p. 2 (1974)).
007
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Debir, a district capital of the Judean monarchy which figures prominently in Joshua and Judges, was misidentified by the great William F. Albright, according to Professor Moshe Kochavi of Tel Aviv University. Professor Kochavi argues that he, not Albright has excavated the true site of Debir—at Khirbet Rabud, in the Judean hill country, twelve miles southwest of Hebron.
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Kochavi was by no means the first scholar to suggest that Debir is really Khirbet Rabud, but his excavations have significantly reinforced the argument. Martin Noth is perhaps the best-known scholar who previously suggested Rabud was Debir.
2.
Prior to Albright’s identification of Tell Beit Mirsim as Debir, earlier surveys, including the Palestine Exploration Fund’s Survey of Western Palestine, had identified a site named Dhaheriyeh as Debir. This proved to be impossible when excavations showed there was no occupation there during the pre-Israelite Canaanite period (the Late Bronze Age). However, this site, like Khirbet Rabud, is in the Judean hill country south of Hebron, rather than in the Shephelah, the location of Tell Beit Mirsim.