Bible Locations

Mahalab appears in Joshua 19:29 in some translations, in the description of the border of Asher: "The boundary then turned back toward Ramah and went to the fortified city of Tyre, turned toward Hosah and came out at the Mediterranean Sea in the region of Akzib." Where older translations read "from the coast to Achzib," the NIV and others read "Mahalab, Akzib," based on a reconstruction of the Hebrew. It's the same as Ahlab and possibly Helbah in Judges 1:31, among the towns Asher couldn't conquer. It's identified with Mahalliba, a city captured by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 BC, at Khirbet el-Mahalib, on the Mediterranean coast north of Tyre, in southern Lebanon. The narrow coastal strip there was fertile and part of the Phoenician world. Its identification shows how Assyrian records can help clarify difficult readings in the Bible.