Beth-maachah

In the UPDV, "Beth-maachah" (also spelled Beth-maacah) is not an independent town but the second element of the city name Abel-beth-maacah in the far north of Israel, in the territory of Naphtali. The entry is sometimes catalogued as a city of the territory of the tribe of Manasseh, with references at 2Sa 20:14, 15, 18 and 2Ki 15:29 — every one of those passages, in the UPDV, names the place either as "Abel-beth-maacah" or as the pairing "Abel ... Beth-maacah" rather than as a standalone "Beth-maachah." The full account of the city — Sheba's revolt and the wise woman's negotiation, Ben-hadad's raid under Asa, and the Assyrian deportation under Tiglath-pileser — is treated under Abel-beth-maachah.

The Bare Form in UPDV

The bare phrase "Beth-maacah" surfaces in UPDV in only one cited verse, where it is the second member of the pairing that names the same northern fortified town: "And he went through all the tribes of Israel to Abel, and to Beth-maacah. And all those who joined him were gathered together, and also went after him" (2Sa 20:14). The next verse closes the pairing and shows the form working as a single place: "And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city" (2Sa 20:15). The wise woman's quoted proverb names only Abel — "They will surely ask [counsel] at Abel: and so they ended [the matter]" (2Sa 20:18) — preserving Abel as the city's short name.

In the Northern Catalogue

The Assyrian deportation list keeps the compound form: "In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria" (2Ki 15:29). On the basis of these four verses, BETH-MAACHAH in UPDV has no separate referent from Abel-beth-maachah; the page on that compound name carries the city's three episodes in full.

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The Bare Form in UPDV

In the Northern Catalogue

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