< Previous | Contents | Next >
(2.) A city of Issachar (1 Chronicles 6:72). Possibly Tell Abu Kadeis, near Lejjun.
(3.) A “fenced city” of Naphtali, one of the cities of refuge (Joshua 19:37; Judges 4:6). It was assigned to the Gershonite Levites (Joshua 21:32). It was originally a Canaanite royal city (Joshua 12:22), and was the residence of Barak (Judges 4:6); and here he and Deborah assembled the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali before the commencement of the conflict with Sisera in the plain of Esdraelon, “for Jehovah among the mighty” (9, 10). In the reign of Pekah it was taken by Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kings 15:29). It was situated near the “plain” (rather “the oak”) of Zaanaim, and has been identified with the modern Kedes, on the hills fully four miles north-west of Lake El Huleh.
It has been supposed by some that the Kedesh of the narrative, where Barak assembled his troops, was not the place in Upper Galilee so named, which was 30 miles distant from the plain of Esdraelon, but Kedish, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, 12 miles from Tabor.
•KEDRON the valley, now quite narrow, between the Mount of Olives and Mount Moriah. The upper part of it is called the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The LXX., in 1 Kings 15:13, translate “of the cedar.” The word means “black,” and may refer to the colour of the water or the gloom of the ravine, or the black green of the cedars which grew there. John 18:1, “Cedron,” only here in New Testament. (See KIDRON.)
•KEHELATHAH assembly, one of the stations of the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 33:22, 23).
•KEILAH citadel, a city in the lowlands of Judah (Joshua 15:44). David rescued it from the attack of the Philistines (1 Samuel 23:1-8); but the inhabitants proving unfaithful to him, in that they sought to deliver him up