Bible Locations

Ahlab was a town in the territory of Asher, in the north, listed in Judges 1:31 among the towns whose Canaanite people Asher didn't drive out, along with Acco, Sidon, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik and Rehob. So it remained Phoenician. Many scholars identify it with Mahalab, mentioned in the records of the Assyrian king Sennacherib among cities he captured in 701 BC, and with Mahalliba in other Assyrian texts. That would place it at Khirbet el-Mahalib, on the Mediterranean coast a few miles north of Tyre, in southern Lebanon. Some also think Helbah, in the same verse, and Mehebel in Joshua 19:29 refer to the same place. The coastal strip here was narrow but fertile, and it was part of the rich Phoenician trading world. Asher's failure to take such towns meant its people lived among the Canaanites, which the book of Judges presents as a warning.