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Etam (2)

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Etam of Judah

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The rock thus designated in the account of Samson's exploits (Judges 15) is regarded by Lieut. Conder (Quar. Statement of the "Pal. Explor. Fund," January 1875, page 12) as the remarkable chasm or cave near the present Beit-Aftb, eight miles west by north from Bethlehem, and described in the Memoirs accompanying the Ordinance Survey (3:23) as a cavern some two hundred and fifty feet long, with an average height of five to eight feet and a width of about eighteen feet; entered at the east end by a vertical shaft called "the well," six by five feet wide and twenty feet deep. The village is a small one, standing on a bare knoll of rock some sixty to one hundred feet above the surrounding ridge, with cisterns to the houses, and a few traces of antiquity. The place is in the vicinity of Samson's adventures, and the identification is accepted by Tristram (Bible Places, page 48).