Timnah (or Timnath)

There seem to be three localities thus designated.

1. In the mountains of Judah (Ge 38:304; Jos 15:57). For ihis no modern representative of a corresponding name (Tibneh) has been discovered in the region required, for the ruined site, Tibna, two and a half miles east of Beit Nettif, and nine miles west of Bethlehem, suggested by Cosider (Memoirs to the Ordnance Survey, 3:53), and containing only "foundations" (ibid. page 161), is entirely out of the neighborhood of the associated localities (in Joshua).

⇒Bible concordance for TIMNAH.

2. In the plain of Judah (Jos 15:10; Jg 14:1-2,5; 2Ch 28:18). The present representative; Tibnah, lies five and a half miles north-east of Tell es-Safieh (Gath), and eight miles south of Abu Shusheh (Gezer). It is merely described in the Memoirs accompanying the Ordnance Survey (2:441) as "ruined walls, caves, and wine-presses, with rock-cut cisterns. The water supply is from a spring on the north side."

3. In Mount Ephraim (Jos 19:50; Jos 24:30; Jg 2:9). The modern ruin, Tibneh, which lies ten miles north-west of Beittn (Bethel), and ten and a half miles north-east of Jimzu, is described at length in the Memoirs to the Ordnance Survey, 2:374 sq. Lieut. Conder remarks (Tent Work, 2:229):

"It seems to me very doubtful how far we can rely on the identity of the site with that of Timnath-Heres. It is certain that this is the place called Timnatha by Jerome, a town of importance, capital of a district in the hills, and on the road from Lydda to Jerusalem, the position of which is fixed by references to surrounding towns. But the Jewish tradition, and also that of the modern Samaritans, points to Kefr Haris as the burialplace of Joshua. It is remarkable, however, that a village called Kefr Ishw'a, or 'Joshua's hamlet,' exists in the immediate neighborhood of the ruin of Tibneh."