Ebenezer
Ebenezer (Hebrew with the art. E'ben ha-E'ezer, אֶבֶן הָעֵזֶר stone of the help; Sept. Α᾿βενέζερ; Josephus translates λίθος ἰσχυρός), the name given to a place marked by a monumental stone which Samuel set up as a memorial of the divine assistance in battle obtained against the Philistines (1Sa 7:12). — SEE PILLAR. 'Twenty years before this, the same spot (mentioned in the history under the same name by anticipation of its subsequent designation) witnessed the discomfiture of the Hebrew hosts, the death of the high-priest's sons, and the capture of the sacred ark by the Philistines (1Sa 4:1; 1Sa 5:1). Its position is carefully defined (1Sa 7:12) as between Mizpeh "the watch-tower," one of the conspicuous eminences a few miles north of Jerusalem and Shen, "the tooth" or "crag," apparently some isolated landmark. Neither of these points, however, has been identified with certainty-at least not the latter. According to Josephus's record of the transaction (Ant. 6:2, 2), the stone was erected to mark the limit of the victory, a spot which he calls Corrhaea, but in the Hebrew BETH-CAR SEE BETH-CAR (q.v.). Eusebius and Jerome affirm (Onomast. a.v. Α᾿βενετέρ, Abenezes) that it lay between Jerusalem and Ashkelon, near (πλησίον, juxta) Bethshemesh. Now Bethshemesh stands on a low ridge on the south side of the rich valley of Sorar. On the opposite side of this valley, on a rising ground, about three miles north-west of Bethshemesh, are the ruins of an old village called Beit-far. The situation answers in every respect to that assigned to Beth-car; and the name may possibly be an Arab corruption of the latter. It lies in the direct route from Mizpeh to the plain of Philistia, and is just on the borders of the latter province, where a pursuing army would halt (Porter, Handbook for Syr. and Pal. page 283). But, as this is very far from the probable site of Mizpeh (Neby-Samwil), it is hardly possible to fix the position of Ebenezer at that of Beth-car. The monumental stone in question may rather have been set up at the point where the enemy began to flee, and we may therefore seek its locality nearer the Israelitish metropolis, possibly at the modern village Biddu, a short distance west of Neby-Samwil (Robinson, Researches, 2:133, note). SEE SHEN.
