Baalath

Baalath is a town that appears three times in the Hebrew Bible, first in the tribal allotment of Dan and later among the cities Solomon fortified. The references are brief — never more than a name in a list — but together they place Baalath inside Dan's territory and inside Solomon's program of strategic building.

In the territory of Dan

Baalath belongs to the inheritance of the tribe of Dan. The town-list of Joshua 19 names it among the Danite holdings:

"and Eltekeh, and Gibbethon, and Baalath," (Jos 19:44).

It stands in the catalogue alongside Eltekeh and Gibbethon, with no further description.

Among Solomon's store-cities

Solomon's building program revisits Baalath as a fortified site. The Kings notice places it after Gezer and Beth-horon the Nether:

"And Solomon built Gezer, and Beth-horon the nether, and Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land," (1Ki 9:17-18).

The Chronicler picks up the same project and groups Baalath with the broader category of store-cities:

"and Baalath, and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion." (2Ch 8:6).

The two royal-building notices align: Baalath is one of the towns Solomon rebuilt and provisioned alongside chariot-cities and horsemen-cities, embedded in a wider network that stretched from Jerusalem to Lebanon.