place · also rock · Joktheel
Sela
סֶ֫לַע
Sela, also known as rock or Joktheel, was an Edomite stronghold captured by King Amaziah of Judah (2Ki. 14:7; 2Chr. 25:12; Isa. 16:1; 42:11; Judg. 1:36).
- verses
- 5
- first named
- Judges 1:36
- last named
- Isaiah 16:1
- feature
- settlement
- coordinates
- 30.78°N · 35.57°E
Sela (OpenBible)
Scholarship offers 4 identifications for this place. The leading one is shown; the others are recorded in the gazetteer.
Description
Sela in the text
Sela, meaning "rock" in Hebrew, was an Edomite stronghold located in the mountainous region of Seir. It is also referred to as Joktheel, a name given to it by King Amaziah of Judah after he captured it (2Ki. 14:7; 2Chr. 25:12). Sela is mentioned in several biblical passages, often in the context of God's judgment against Edom (Isa. 16:1; 42:11). The city was known for its strategic location and natural defenses, as it was situated in a valley surrounded by steep cliffs. Sela is believed to be the ancient name for the city of Petra, the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, which was carved into the rock faces of the surrounding mountains. The Nabataeans, who inhabited the area after the Edomites, further developed the city and its impressive rock-cut architecture. Today, the ruins of Petra are a popular tourist destination and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Jordan.
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.
The pattern
Where Sela 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.
5 verses across 4 of 66 books; 62 write the name nowhere. Named in Judges (1), 2 Kings (1), 2 Chronicles (1) and Isaiah (2).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 5, across 4 books. The name is written 6 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. 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