GATH(Γέθ, Γέττα: Eth. Γεθαῖος), one of the five principal cities of the Philistines ( Josh. 11.22; 1 Sam. 5.8, vi 17), the birthplace and home of Goliath and his gigantic family. (1 Sam. 17.4; 2 Sam. 21.18—22.) It was taken by Uzziah, and dismantled. (2 Chron. 26.6.) Josephus reckons it to the tribe of Dan ( Ant. 5.1.22), and says that Hezekiah took the cities of the Philistines from Gaza to Gath. ( Ant. 9.13.3.) St. Jerome speaks of it as a city of the Philistines on the confines of Judaea, between Eleutheropolis and Gaza, where a very extensive village existed in his day. ( Comment. in Mich. 1.10). There can be little doubt that this same is intended in the Onomasticon(s. v. Γέθ), though it is there erroneously stated to be five miles from Eleutheropolis, on the road to Diospolis or Lydda. (Reland, Palaest. s. v. ) The inhabitants of Beit-Jebrin(Eleutheropolis) speak of a village named Kuryet-el-Gat, a quarter of an hour distant from Beit-Jebrin, on the road to Askelan. It may, perhaps, be permitted to hazard the conjecture that the present Beit-Jebrin—the classical Betogarba and Eleutheropolis—marks the site of the ancient Gath. [BETHOGABRIS] [G.W]
GATH-HEPHER (Γεθχοφές, Γαιθθά, LXX.; Γεππεφά, Euseb. Onom. ), a town of Galilee in the tribe of Zabulon ( Josh. 19.13), the native place of the prophet Jonah (2 Kings, 14.25). St. Jerome places it two miles from Sepphoris, on the road to Tiberias, a small village in his day, where the tomb of the prophet was shown. ( Proem. in Jonam. ) The tomb was shown to Benjamin of Tudela, in the mountains near Sepphoris, in the twelfth century ( Travels, vol. 1. p. 80, ed. Ashar); and in tile village of El-Meshhad, situated two miles east of the ruins of Sepphoris, the Moslems show at this day the tomb of the prophet Jonah. (Robinson, Bib. Res. vol. 3. p. 209, note 1.) [G.W]