# Zelah
**Zelah** (Hebrew צֵלַע, Tsela, meaning "rib" or "side") is a town named in the [Hebrew Bible](https://www.edgepedia.org/hebrew-bible) in the territory of the tribe of [Benjamin](https://www.edgepedia.org/benjamin), in the central hill country.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) It appears only twice: once in the town list of Joshua 18:28 and once in 2 Samuel 21:14, which records that David buried the bones of [Saul](https://www.edgepedia.org/saul) and Jonathan there in the ancestral tomb of Kish.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) Its exact location is not certain.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela)
| Key facts | |
|---|---|
| Hebrew name | צֵלַע (Tsela), KJV "Zelah", meaning "rib, side"[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) |
| Tribe / region | Benjamin, central hill country north of Jerusalem[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) • [2](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm) |
| Biblical attestations | Joshua 18:28 (town list); 2 Samuel 21:14 (burial of Saul and Jonathan)[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) |
| Claim to importance | Burial place of Saul, Jonathan, and Saul's family in the tomb of Kish[3](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Zelah) |
| Proposed identifications | Khirbet Salah, Beit Jala, Khirbet Rumm, the Amarna toponym Zilu[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) • [4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm) • [5](https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/Z/zelah.html) • [2](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm) |
| Archaeology | The town is otherwise unknown[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm) |
## Biblical attestations and versions
Joshua 18:28 lists Zelah in the closing group of Benjamin's allotment: "Zelah, Haeleph and the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah, Kiriath; fourteen cities with their villages."[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm) These fourteen cities in general lay a few miles north of Jerusalem.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) The Hebrew text may be read "Zela ha-eleph" ("ox rib"), as the A text of the [Septuagint](https://www.edgepedia.org/septuagint), Σηλαλεφ, suggests; the Septuagint of 2 Samuel 21:14 instead translates the name as πλευρά, "side".[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) • [2](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm) A nineteenth-century cyclopedia prints the Septuagint forms as Σηλά in Joshua and Πλευρὰ in Samuel.[5](https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/Z/zelah.html)
A third possible attestation is disputed. 1 Samuel 10:2 names "Zelzah" (ṣelṣah), where Samuel predicts Saul will meet two men by Rachel's tomb at the border of Benjamin.[6](https://doi.org/10.5040/9780300261929-720) The place name is dubious: the Septuagint translates the Hebrew word as "leaping mightily" rather than as a place name, and no name like Zelzah has been recovered in the district.[7](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=ZELZAH) Smith, in the International Critical Commentary on Samuel, suggested reading "Zela" (tsela) for "Zelzah" (tseltsach) as a textual corruption.[7](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=ZELZAH) This remains a conjecture about a distinct name, not an attestation of Zelah itself.
## The Saul burial
2 Samuel 21:14 tells how David buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan at Zela, in the ancestral tomb of Kish, Saul's father.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) • [3](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Zelah) The passage identifies Zelah as important to Saul's family, and Bible dictionaries infer from it that Zelah was probably Saul's birthplace.[3](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Zelah)
## The name
The noun tsela means "rib" (Genesis 2:21-22) and, applied to terrain, a side or slope of a hill (2 Samuel 16:13).[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela) In the plural, tselaot, the word means the "beams" of a building, described as if the ribs of the structure, in 1 Kings 6:15-16.[8](https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/hebrew/6762.html) The topographic sense of a slope or ridge fits the rugged hill country of Benjamin, where vantages, caves, and strategic passes figure in the early narratives.[2](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm)
## Location and identification
No identification is secure. The candidates proposed are:
- **Khirbet Salah**, between Jerusalem and [Gibeon](https://www.edgepedia.org/gibeon), suggested as a possible site by the Encyclopedia of The Bible.[1](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela)
- **Beit Jala**, south of the plain of Rephaim, proposed in the Cambridge Bible for Joshua 18:28; modern travelers have been inclined to identify Zelah with [Beit Jala](https://www.edgepedia.org/beit-jala).[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm) • [5](https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/Z/zelah.html)
- **Khirbet Rumm**, Conder's suggestion, which the same nineteenth-century account calls "equally a venture".[5](https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/Z/zelah.html)
- **Zilu**, a toponym in the Tell el-[Amarna letters](https://www.edgepedia.org/amarna-letters), proposed by Jastrow in 1892 citing Zimmern; Wkl (Winckler) instead derived the name from the root selach, "rock".[2](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm)
A 1911 Palestine Exploration Fund survey account placed "Madmenah or Zela" in the vicinity of Hizmeh, following the route of Isaiah 10:29 through Geba, Ramah, Gibeah, Gallim, the hill of Laish, and Anathoth.[9](https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/pefqs/1911_02_101.pdf) Each proposal rests on name similarity and general geography; none has been confirmed by excavation, and the Cambridge Bible states simply that Zelah is "otherwise unknown".[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm)
## Zelah among the Benjaminite towns
The town list fixes Zelah relative to named neighbors. Gibeah, the Gibeah of Saul, is generally placed at Tell Tuleil el-Ful (Teleil el-Ful), about four miles north of Jerusalem east of the road to Shechem; er-Ram nearby corresponds to Ramah and the road to Jeba to Geba.[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm) • [10](https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/gibeah.html) The Cambridge Bible renders the list's last items as "Gibeah, Kiriath", and Keil and Delitzsch note Zelah only as the burial place of Saul and his family.[4](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm)
Unlike Zelah, its key neighbor has been dug. Tell el-Ful was excavated by [William F. Albright](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-f-albright) in 1922-23 and 1933 and by Paul W. Lapp in 1964, uncovering five occupation phases from Iron Age I to the Roman period.[11](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibeah-geba) The evidence indicates that Period II held only a solitary massive tower of about 62 by 57 m, not a fortress, and that the site stood in ruins until the eighth century BCE.[11](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibeah-geba) Even this excavated identification is contested: J. M. Miller (1975) and P. M. Arnold (1990) challenged the Gibeah-Tell el-Ful equation and proposed Gibeah = Geba (modern Jaba).[11](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibeah-geba)
The regional setting supports a Saulide-era town in principle. In the eleventh to mid-tenth centuries BCE the region of Benjamin between Jerusalem and Bethel, unsettled for hundreds of years, saw a sudden build-up of sedentary settlement, including the only fortified cities in the central hill country of the time.[12](https://examiningthebible.com/2024/04/10/king-saul-in-archaeology-and-text/) Finkelstein holds that Tell el-Ful was abandoned in this period and only resettled hundreds of years later, in Iron Age IIC.[12](https://examiningthebible.com/2024/04/10/king-saul-in-archaeology-and-text/) The two accounts of the occupation gap at Tell el-Ful differ: the archaeological encyclopedia reports ruin from the Saulide period until the eighth century BCE,[11](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibeah-geba) while Finkelstein reports abandonment in the early Iron IIA and resettlement in Iron Age IIC.[12](https://examiningthebible.com/2024/04/10/king-saul-in-archaeology-and-text/)
## References
1. [Zela - Encyclopedia of The Bible (Bible Gateway)](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Zela)
2. [Strong's Hebrew: 6762. צֵ֫לַע (Tsela) -- Zela, Zelah](https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/6762.htm)
3. [NETBible: Zelah](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Zelah)
4. [Joshua 18:28 Commentaries (Keil & Delitzsch, Cambridge Bible, etc.)](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/joshua/18-28.htm)
5. [Zelah, Biblical Cyclopedia](https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/Z/zelah.html)
6. [Zelzah (Place) - Yale reference entry](https://doi.org/10.5040/9780300261929-720)
7. [NETBible: Zelzah (ISBE, W. Ewing)](https://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=ZELZAH)
8. [Strong's #6762 - Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary (Gesenius)](https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/hebrew/6762.html)
9. [Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1911](https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/pefqs/1911_02_101.pdf)
10. [Gibeah - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia](https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/gibeah.html)
11. [Gibeah, Geba (Encyclopedia.com)](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibeah-geba)
12. [King Saul in Archaeology and Text](https://examiningthebible.com/2024/04/10/king-saul-in-archaeology-and-text/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Places and geography › Ancient and historical places › Cities and sites of the ancient Near East, Egypt, and Nubia › Ancient Levant › Israel and Judah: cities, sites, and monuments › Towns, tells, and fortresses*
*Initially written Sep 19, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026 · Last review: Sep 19, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
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