considerable collection of ruins five hours and a half to the south of Beersheba (see Rob. i. p. 296): assuming first of all that the name el Khulasa, as the Arabs called this place, was derived from the Mahometan idol already referred to; and secondly, that the Saracen Lucifer mentioned by Jerome was the very same idol whose image and temple Janhari and Kamus call el Khalasa. Hormah: i.e., Zephoth, the present Sepata (see at Jos 12:14). Ziklag, which was assigned to the Simeonites (Jos 19:5; 1Ch 4:30), burnt down by the Amalekites (1Sa 30:1.), and still inhabited after the captivity (Neh 11:28), is supposed by Rowland to be the ancient place called Asluj or Kasluj, a few hours to the east of Zepata, with which Knobel, however, in a most remarkable manner, identifies the Asluj to the south-west of Milh on the road to Abdeh, which is more than thirty-five miles distant (see Rob. Pal. ii. p. 621). Both places are too far to the south and east to suit Ziklag, which is to be sought for much farther west. So far as the situation is concerned, the ruins of Tell Sheriah or Tell Mellala, one of which is supposed by V. de Velde to contain the relics of Ziklag, would suit much better; or even, as Ritter supposes (Erdk. xvi. pp. 132-3), Tell el Hasy, which is half an hour to the south-west of Ajlan, and in which Felix Fabri found the ruins of a castle and of an ancient town, in fact of the ancient Ziklag, though Robinson (i. pp. 389ff.) could discover nothing that indicted in any way the existence of a town or building of any kind. Madmannah and Sansannah cannot be traced with any certainty. Madmannah, which is confounded in the Onom. (s. v. Medemena) with Madmena, a place to the north of Jerusalem mentioned in Isa 10:31, though elsewhere it is correctly described as Menois oppidum juxta civitatem Gazam, has probably been preserved in the present Miniay or Minieh, to the south of Gaza. Sansannah, Knobel compares with the Wady Suni, mentioned by Robinson (i. p. 299), to the south of Gaza, which possibly received its name from some town in the neighbourhood. But in the place of them we find Beth-marcaboth (i.e., carriage-house) and Hazar-susa (i.e., horse-court) mentioned in Jos 19:5 and 1Ch 4:31 among the towns of the Simeonites, which Reland very properly regards as the same as Madmannah and Sansannah, since it is very evident from the meaning of the former names that they were simply secondary names, which were given to them as stations for carriages and horses.
Verse 32
Jos 15:32Lebaoth, one of the Simeonite towns, called Beth-lebaoth (i.e., lion-house) in Jos 19:6, and Beth-birei in 1Ch 4:31, has
