Dictionaries :: Michmas or Michmash

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Michmas or Michmash:

(hidden) a town which is known to us almost solely by its connection with the Philistine war of Saul and Jonathan (1 Samuel 13:1; 1 Samuel 14:1). … It has been identified with great probability in a village which still bears the name of Mukhmas, about seven miles north of Jerusalem. The place was thus situated in the very middle of the tribe of Benjamin. In the invasion of Sennacherib in the reign of Hezekiah, it is mentioned by Isaiah (Isaiah 10:28). After the captivity the man of the place returned (Ezra 2:27; Nehemiah 7:31). At a later date it became the residence of Jonathan Maccabaeus and the seat of his government (1 Maccabees 9:73). In the time of Eusebius and Jerome it was "a very large village, retaining its ancient name, and lying near Ramah in the district of Aelia (Jerusalem) at ten miles distance therefrom." Immediately below the village the great wady spreads out to a considerable width-perhaps half a mile; and its bed is broken up into an intricate mass of hummocks and mounds, two of which, before the torrents of three thousand winters had reduced and rounded their forms, were probably the two "teeth of cliff"-the Bozes and Seneh of Jonathan's adventure.