Gibeon
(hill city), one of the four, cities of the Hivites, the inhabitants of which made a league with Joshua, ( Joshua 9:3-15 ) and thus escaped the fate of Jericho and Ai. Comp. ch. ( Joshua 11:19 ) Gibeon lay within the territory of Benjamin, ch. ( Joshua 18:25 ) and with its “suburbs” was allotted to the priests, ch. ( Joshua 21:17 ) of whom it became afterwards a principal station. It retains its ancient name almost intact, el-Jib . Its distance from Jerusalem by the main road is about 6 1/2 miles; but there is a more direct road reducing it to five miles.
Gibeonites, The
the people of Gibeon, and perhaps also of the three cities associated with Gibeon, ( Joshua 9:17 )—Hivites; and who, on the discover of the stratagem by which they had obtained the protection of the Israelites, were condemned to be perpetual bondmen, hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the house of God and altar of Jehovah. ( Joshua 9:23 , 27 ) Saul appears to have broken this covenant, and in a fit of enthusiasm or patriotism to have killed some and devised a general massacre of the rest. ( 2 Samuel 21:1 , 2 , 5 ) This was expiated many years after by giving up seven men of Saul’s descendants to the Gibeonites, who hung them or crucified them “before Jehovah”—as a kind of sacrifice— in Gibeah, Saul’s own town. ch. ( 2 Samuel 21:4 , 6 , 9 )
Goshen
The name of a part of Egypt where the Israelites dwelt during the whole period of their sojourn in that country. It was probably situated on the eastern border of the Nile, extending from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. It contained the treasure-cities of Rameses and Pittim. It was a pasture land, especially suited to a shepherd people, and sufficient for the Israelites, who there prospered, and were separate from the main body of the Egyptians. A district in southern Palestine conquered by Joshua. ( Joshua 10:41 ) It lay between Gaza and Gibeon. A town in the mountains of Judah, probably in a part of the country of Goshen.