The Identification of Zeredah, Home of Jeroboam Son of Nebat, King of Israel / זיהויה של הצרדה, עירו של יובעם בן נבט מלך ישראל

The Masoretic text tells us only that Jeroboam the Ephraimite was born in (the) Zeredah. A much debated paragraph in the Septuagint (1 Kings 12:24+ff.) describes Zeredah as Jeroboam's fortified capital city. Tur-Sinai explained the meaning of the place-name as 'dry, barren land'. In 1923 Albright came upon a spring called 'Ein Saridah, located in Wadi Saridah (today part of Naḥal Shiloh). He identified the ruin of Kh. Balatah, by that spring, as Jeroboam's Zeredah. He changed his mind after Alt argued convincingly that at Kh. Balath the pottery sherds were from the Byzantine and later periods only. In a short trial excavation, conducted in 1933 in the village of Deir Ghassaneh, several miles upstream, Albright found evidence of an Iron Age settlement and suggested identifying Zeredah with that village, an identification which was accepted from that time on. During the Regional Survey conducted by the Aphek-Antipatris excavation team under the present writer in 1973, an Iron Age site was located just above 'Ein Saridah. The site of Kh. Banat-Bar is situated in a well-protected and commanding position. Its acropolis, an elongated barren rock formation 15 m higher than its immediate surroundings, could have served as a princely fort and its unusual form could have been the reason for its name. The proximity to the spring and the wadi bearing the ancient name and the appropriate archaeo logical remains, suggest that Kh. Banat-Bar was the site of Jeroboam's Zeredah, while Kh. Balatah down in the river-bed was the site of the Zeredah of the Second Temple and later periods.