Joktheel

Joktheel is the name borne by two distinct places in the Hebrew scriptures: a town in the inheritance of Judah, and a renamed Edomite stronghold seized by Amaziah of Judah. The shared toponym sits behind a wider cluster of texts that describe a "rock" at the southern Edomite frontier.

A Town in the Shephelah of Judah

In the catalogue of cities allotted to the tribe of Judah, Joktheel appears among the lowland towns alongside Dilean and Mizpeh: "and Dilean, and Mizpeh, and Joktheel," (Jos 15:38). The verse gives nothing more than the name and its position in the list; the place is registered as Judahite territory without further narrative.

Sela Renamed by Amaziah

The second Joktheel is the result of a military victory. After Amaziah's campaign against Edom, the Kings narrative records that "He slew of Edom in the Valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Sela by war, and called the name of it Joktheel, to this day" (2Ki 14:7). The renaming follows the capture: Sela, the Edomite stronghold, becomes Joktheel by royal designation, and the new name is presented as still current at the time the report was set down.

The Chronicler's Parallel

The Chronicler tells the same campaign with different emphasis. Amaziah "took courage, and led forth his people, and went to the Valley of Salt, and struck of the sons of Seir ten thousand" (2Ch 25:11). The follow-up verse describes the fate of a second contingent: "And the sons of Judah carried away alive [another] ten thousand, and brought them to the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, so that all of them were broken in pieces" (2Ch 25:12). The Chronicler does not use the name Joktheel; instead the location is identified by its physical feature, "the rock" — the same Sela that Kings reports renamed.

"The Rock" on the Edomite Border

The toponym behind both Sela and Joktheel surfaces a third time in the geography of Judges. In the closing notice of Judges 1, the boundary of the Amorites is traced "from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward" (Jud 1:36). The "rock" here marks the frontier between Amorite (and by association Edomite) and Israelite territory, the same kind of escarpment-stronghold the Chronicler's narrative depicts and the Kings narrative renames.

Two Joktheels, One Name

The texts do not collapse the two Joktheels into one. The Judahite town in Jos 15:38 stands in the lowland city-list with no military backstory; the Edomite Joktheel of 2Ki 14:7 is explicitly a renaming of Sela after Amaziah's victory in the Valley of Salt. The Chronicler's "top of the rock" (2Ch 25:12) and the boundary "rock" of Jud 1:36 illuminate the second site without naming it Joktheel directly. The shared name across two locations is left as the texts present it — a Judahite town and a captured Edomite height — without harmonization.