Josephus tells us of a village called Gabaoth Saule which was by the Valley of Thorns, and about thirty stadia from Jerusalem. This reminds us at once of the name Seneh, “thorn” or “acacia,” which was applied to one of the crags at the place where Jonathan crossed to the Philistine camp at Michmash. The modern name of the great valley between Geba and Michmash is Suweinît, or the “valley of the little thorn-tree” (acacia), and if this identification of the Valley of Thorns with Wâdy Suweinît be correct, the town of Gibeah of Saul is apparently to be placed at the present Jeb’a, though the distance given by Josephus is not exact.
The site of the Philistine camp at Michmash, which Jonathan and his armour-bearer attacked, is very minutely described by Josephus. It was, he says, a precipice with three tops, ending in a long sharp tongue and protected by surrounding cliffs. Exactly such a natural fortress exists immediately east of the village of Michmash, and it is still called “the fort” by the peasantry. It is a ridge rising in three rounded knolls above a perpendicular crag, ending in a narrow tongue to the east with cliffs below, and having an open valley behind it, and a saddle towards the west on which Michmash itself is situate.
Opposite this fortress, on the south, there is a crag of equal height and seemingly impassable; thus the description of the Old Testament is fully borne out—“a sharp rock on one side, and a sharp rock on the other” (1 Sam. xiv. 4).
The southern cliff, as we have noticed above, was called Seneh, or “the acacia,” and the same name still applies to the modern valley, due to the acacia-trees which dot its course. The northern cliff was named Bozez, or “shining,” and the true explanation of this name only presents itself on the spot.
The great valley runs nearly due east, and thus the southern cliff is almost entirely in shade during the day. The contrast is surprising and picturesque between the dark cool colour of the south side and the ruddy or tawny tints of the northern cliff, crowned with, the gleaming white of the upper chalky strata. The picture is unchanged since the days when Jonathan looked over to the white camping-ground of the Philistines, and Bozez must then have shone as brightly as it does now, in the full light of an Eastern sun.
The watchmen of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin must have seen clearly, across the chasm, the extraordinary conflict of two men against a host, as the “multitude melted away and they went on beating down one another.” The noise in the host was also, no doubt, clearly heard at the distance of only two miles, and the army would have crossed the passage with comparatively little difficulty by the narrow path which leads down direct from Geba to Michmash, west of the Philistine camp. Thence the pursuit was towards Bethel, across the watershed, and headlong down the steep descent of Aijalon—that same pass where the first great victory of Joshua had been gained, and where the valiant Judas was once more in later times to drive back the enemies of Israel to the plains.
The town of Ramah was, as above noticed, in the district of Gibeah, which surrounded Geba and reached to Migron (1 Sam. xiv. 2), or to “the precipice” of the Michmash Valley. Ramah was a well-known town of Benjamin, but it is not generally regarded as that Ramah, or Ramathaim Zophim, which was Samuel’s home and burial-place.
