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Shochoh


Sokho, alternate spellings: Sokhoh, Sochoh, Soco, Sokoh, Hebrew: שוכה ,שוכו ,שכה, is the name given to two ancient towns in the territorial domain of Judah, the remains of both having been identified.

Both towns were given the name Shuweikah in Arabic, a diminutive of the Arabic shawk, "thorn." One is located to the south of Hebron and has been identified with the twin ruins known as Khirbet Shuwaikah Fauka and Tahta (Upper and Lower Shuwaikah), 6 km southwest of Eshtamoa in the Hebron Hills district (Joshua 15:48). The other ruin is the more popular of the two, situated on a hilltop overlooking the Elah Valley between Adullam and Azekah (Joshua 15:35). It was visited by Claude Conder in 1881, who writes that it was already a ruin in his days, with two wells in the valley towards the west. A third town by this name, Shuwaykah, was located in the Hefer region (1 Kings 4:10), north of Tulkarm.

Although listed in Joshua 15:35 as being a city in the plain, it is actually partly in the hill country, partly in the plain. The Philistines encamped between Sokho and Azekah in the Elah Valley before Goliath's historic encounter with David, the son of Jesse (1 Samuel 17:1). David slew the Philistine giant with a stone slung from a shepherd's sling. Rehoboam fortified the place (2 Chronicles 11:7). It was one of the cities occupied temporarily by the Philistines in the time of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:18).


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