place · also Gittite · Metheg-ammah

Gath

גַּת

Gath, one of the five major Philistine cities, was the hometown of Goliath and a place of refuge for David during his flight from Saul.

Where the story of Gath happens Gath, and 1 place the claims reach, framed to them: Gath, Philistia. Each dot is a coordinate from the gazetteer. The coastline is a modern one, simplified; no border, road or settlement of any period is drawn, and no line joins two points, because the rows state where and not in what order.GathPhilistia
Gath, and 1 place the claims reach
verses
41
first named
Joshua 11:22
last named
Micah 1:10
feature
settlement
coordinates
31.70°N · 34.85°E
settlement31.70°N · 34.85°E

Tell es Safi (OpenBible)

Scholarship offers 8 identifications for this place. The leading one is shown; the others are recorded in the gazetteer.

Description

Gath in the text

In the words of STEPBible TIPNR:

Gath was one of the five principal cities of the Philistines, along with Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron (Joshua 13:3). It was located in the coastal plain of Philistia, near the border with Judah. The city is mentioned numerous times throughout the Old Testament, often in the context of conflicts between the Israelites and the Philistines.

During the conquest of Canaan, Gath was one of the last strongholds of the Anakim, a race of giants (Joshua 11:22). The city gained prominence as the hometown of Goliath, the giant warrior who was defeated by David in single combat (1Sa.17.4, 23).

Gath played a significant role in the life of David. When fleeing from King Saul, David sought refuge in Gath, where he pretended to be insane to avoid arousing suspicion (1Sa.21.10-15). Later, David returned to Gath and served under King Achish, who gave him the town of Ziklag (1Sa.27.2-6).

The city was captured by David during his reign as king (1Ch.18.1), and it was also attacked by later Israelite kings, such as Uzziah (2Ch.26.6) and Hezekiah (2Ki.18.8). The term "Gittite" is used to refer to people from Gath, such as Obed-Edom, in whose house the Ark of the Covenant was temporarily kept (2Sa.6.10-11).

Gath is also mentioned in prophetic texts, such as Amo.6.2 and Micah 1:10, which speak of the city's destruction and the fate of its inhabitants. The exact location of Gath is uncertain, but it is believed to be Tell es-Safi, an archaeological site in modern-day Israel.

Relations

Direct connections

Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.

Associated with

Stands in the same events as

and 7 more, ordered by how many events they share.

The pattern

Where Gath is named

Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.

Where the name is written across the corpus. 41 verses across 10 of 66 books; 56 write the name nowhere. OLD TESTAMENT · 39 BOOKSNEW TESTAMENT · 27 BOOKS1 SAMUEL–2 CHRONICLES36 VERSESPSALMS1 VERSEAMOS1 VERSE33 books and 289 chapters with no mentionBOOK WIDTH = CHAPTER COUNT Where the name is written across the corpus. 41 verses across 10 of 66 books; 56 write the name nowhere. OT · 39 BOOKSNT · 27 BOOKS1 SAMUEL–2 CHRONICLES36 VERSESPSALMS1 VERSEAMOS1 VERSE33 books with no mentionBOOK WIDTH = CHAPTER COUNT

41 verses across 10 of 66 books; 56 write the name nowhere. Named in Joshua (2), 1 Samuel (12), 2 Samuel (11), 1 Kings (3), 2 Kings (1), 1 Chronicles (7), 2 Chronicles (2), Psalms (1), Amos (1) and Micah (1).

Gath is named in 41 verses, and the name is written 45 times in them — occurrences of the name in the Hebrew or Greek, counted in the versification of the Berean Standard Bible (v5.7). Every book of the corpus is drawn, its width its share of the 1,189 chapters. 56 of the 66 books never write it. A verse that tells of this subject without writing the name is not counted here.

Read it

Where to read it

Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 41, across 10 books. The name is written 45 times in them.

  1. Joshua2 verses

    11:2213:3

  2. 1 Samuel12 verses

    5:86:177:1417:417:2317:5221:1021:1227:227:327:427:11

  3. 2 Samuel11 verses

    1:206:106:118:115:1815:1915:2218:221:1921:2021:22

  4. 1 Kings3 verses

    2:392:402:41

  5. 2 Kings1 verse

    12:17

  6. 1 Chronicles7 verses

    7:218:1313:1318:120:520:620:8

  7. 2 Chronicles2 verses

    11:826:6

  8. Psalms1 verse

    56:1

  9. Amos1 verse

    6:2

  10. Micah1 verse

    1:10

Onward

Where this page goes

Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.

Where they appear

What happened here

Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.

Sources

What this rests on