Hebrew word · H514

אֶלְתְּקֵא

'elteke'

Eltekeh

A proper name only. It appears in the Bible just twice: here, in Dan's allotment, and in Joshua 21:23, where it is listed among the towns given from Dan to the Kohathite clan of Levites. Where the name comes from is uncertain. Proposed meanings are speculative, and no proposal has wide support.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Eltekeh = "let God spue thee out"

Levitical city in the tribe of Dan, between Ekron and Timna

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Joshua 19:44

Range of meaning

A proper name only. It appears in the Bible just twice: here, in Dan's allotment, and in Joshua 21:23, where it is listed among the towns given from Dan to the Kohathite clan of Levites. Where the name comes from is uncertain. Proposed meanings are speculative, and no proposal has wide support.

Against the English

All English versions transliterate it as 'Eltekeh'. Nothing is lost in translation, because no meaning is being translated.

Used elsewhere in the period

This is almost certainly the town the Assyrian king Sennacherib calls Altaqû in his annals of the 701 BC campaign. On 'the plain of Altaqû' he fought an Egyptian and Cushite (Nubian) army that had come to help Ekron and Judah. He then captured Altaqû and nearby Tamna (Timnah, verse 43). That fits the town's place in this list, next to Timnah and Ekron. Where exactly it was is still debated. Tell esh-Shalaf, north of Yavneh, is a frequent proposal. The older identification with Khirbet el-Muqanna' was dropped once that site turned out to be Ekron.

Where it appears

Joshua · 2

  1. Joshua 19:44 וְאֶלְתְּקֵ֥ה and Eltekeh

    Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath,

    Here: A town in the coastal lowland given to the tribe of Dan. It is later named as a town given to Levite families (Joshua 21:23). The 'and' (ve-) joins it to the list of towns that runs through verses 41–46.

  2. Joshua 21:23 אֶלְתְּקֵ֖א Eltekeh

    From the tribe of Dan they were given Elteke, Gibbethon,

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.