GIBEON
A considerable city of the Hivites, afterwards a Levitical city in the tribe of Benjamin, Joshua 18:25; Joshua 1:21. It lay near Geba and Gibeah, and is sometimes wrongly taken for Geba. Its Canaanite inhabitants secured a treaty with Joshua and the elders of Israel by strategem, and were made hewers of wood for the sanctuary. Five neighboring kings unitedly fell upon them; but were defeated by the Jews in a great battle, during which "the sun stood still upon Gibeon," Joshua 9:10. Here the tabernacle was set up for many years, 1 Chronicles 16:39; 1 Chronicles 1:21; 2 Chronicles 1:3, 2 Chronicles 1:1; and here god communed by night with young king Solomon, 1 Kings 1:3-15. It is also memorable for two scenes in the life of Joab, 2 Samuel 1:2-32; 2 Samuel 1:20 Jeremiah 41:12. It stood on an eminence, six miles north of Jerusalem.