Ahlab
Ah'lab (Hebrew Achlab', אחלָב, fatness, i e. fertile; Sept. Α᾿χλάβ v. r. Δαλάφ), a town of Asher, apparently near Zidon and Achzib, the native inhabitants of which the Israelites were unable to expel (Jg 1:31). Its lying thus within the unconquered Phoenician border may be the reason of its omission in the list of the Asherite cities (Jos 19:24-31). It is supposed (see Schwarz, Palest. p. 198) that Achlab reappears in later history as Gush-Chalab (גּוּשׁ חָלב) or Giscala (Reland, Palest. p. 813, 817), a place lately identified by Robinson under the abbreviated name of el-Jish, near Safed, in the hilly country to the northwest of the sea of Galilee (Researches, new ed. 2:446; 3, 73). This place was in rabbinical times famous for its oil, and the old olive-trees still remain in the neighborhood (Reland and Robinson, ib.). From it came the famous John, son of Levi, the leader in the siege of Jerusalem (Joseph. Life, 10; War, 2, 21, 1), and it had a legendary celebrity as the birth-place of the parents of no less a person than the Apostle Paul (Jerome, Comment. ad Ep. ad Philem.). But this cannot be the Ahlab of Asher. SEE GISCHALA.
