Bible Meaning: Hill
Strong's Concordance #H1390
Gibeah is the name of a city given to the tribe of Judah as an inheritance in the Promised Land (Joshua 15:57). The tribe of Benjamin was also given a city by the same name that is located a short distance north of Jerusalem (18:28). A hill near Kiriath-jearim was also called Gibeah.
Gibeah in Benjamin is where a Levite's wife was brutally raped and murdered by the city's wicked men (Judges 19 - 20). This heinous act sets off a chain of events that ultimately leads to the tribe almost being wiped off the face of the earth!
This Benjamite city is also the place where Saul, Israel's first god-chosen human king, was born. He continued to live in the city after becoming ruler and made it the country's administrative center (1Samuel 10:26, 15:34, 23:19).
David, after becoming king, wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. He arranged to have it moved from a hill near Kiriath-jearim named Gibeah and transported to his new capital (1Samuel 7:1 - 2, 2Samuel 6:1 - 5). The Ark, however, only made it part of the way due to it not being moved according to God's instructions (Exodus 25:14, Numbers 4:15). It would later be properly carried to Jerusalem (2Samuel 6:13 - 17).
Important Verses
Joshua 15:20, 57
This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families . . . Cain, Gibeah, and Timnah: ten cities with their villages.
Joshua 18:21, 28
Now the cities of the tribe of the children of Benjamin according to their families were Jericho, and Bethhoglah, and the valley of Keziz . . .
And Zelah, Eleph, and Jebusi, which is Jerusalem, Gibeath (Gibeah), and Kirjath: fourteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the children of Benjamin according to their families.
Judges 20:4 - 5, 34 - 36
And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge.
And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead . . .
And there came against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was sore: but they knew not that evil was near them.
And the Lord smote Benjamin before Israel: and the children of Israel destroyed of the Benjamites that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men . . .
So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten: for the men of Israel gave place to the Benjamites, because they trusted unto the liers in wait which they had set beside Gibeah.
1Samuel 10:24, 26
And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? . . .
And Saul also went home to Gibeah: and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.
1Samuel 13:2
Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel: whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
2Samuel 6:1 - 3
Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims.
And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart.