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Bible Dictionaries
Arbela
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or ARBELA . The discrepancy between 1Ma 9:1-73 and Jos. [Note: Josephus.] Ant . XII. xi. 1, our only authorities, makes uncertain the route of Bacchides in his march on Jerusalem. Josephus makes him pitch his camp at Arbela in Galilee: 1 Mac. brings him ‘by the way that leadeth to Gilgal,’ to ‘Mesaloth which is in Arbela.’ His course thence points to Jiljilia as Gilgal, about 5 miles N. of Bîr ez-Zeit , where the battle was fought with Judas. Mesaloth might then he sought in Meselieh , about 3 miles S.E. of Dothan. But no name resembling Arbela, either of town or district, is found in the neighbourhood; although Eusebius ( Onomasticon ) seems to have known an Arbela not far from Lejjun. On the other hand, Arbela in Galilee survives in the modern Irbil or Irbid , a ruin on the S. lip of the gorge, Wâdy Hamâm , which breaks westward from Gennesaret. There is, however, no trace of a Mesaloth here, unless indeed Robinson’s ingenious suggestion is right, that it may be the Heb. mesillîth , referring to the famous caverned cliffs in the gorge, whence Bacchides extirpated the refugees.
W. Ewing.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Arbela'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/a/arbela.html. 1909.
