Mizpeh of Benjamin

Mizpeh Of Benjamin Respecting this place Lieut. Conder remarks (Tent Work, 2:117): "There are plenty of Mizpehs in Palestine, but in positions quite inapplicable, whereas, in the right direction there is no name of the kind (so far as has yet been discovered), for Sh'afat is not apparently derived from Mizpeh, but is a name very like that of Jehosaphat, and the natives of the place say that it was called after a Jewish king. In crusading times the town seems to be also mentioned under the title Jehosaphat.

"The early Christians placed Mizpeh in quite another direction, and Nob at Belt Ntba, which is famous in the history of Richard Lion- Heart. Their site for Mizpeh was near Soba, west of Jerusalem, and here we founda ruin with the title Shffa, which in meaning is equivalent to the Hebrew Mizpeh; but this place cannot be described as over against Jerusalem, and its recovery is thus a matter of minor interest.

"There is one other site which has been proposed for Mizpeh, though it is merely a conjecture, and not a name which might lead to the identification: this site is the remarkable hill called Neby Samwil, north of Jerusalem. The place is conspicuous from the tall minaret which crowns the old crusading church on the summit, and within the church is. the cenotaph now revered by the Moslems as the tomb of Samuel a modern monument covered with a green cloth.

"The crusaders, with their usual contempt for facts, fixed on this hill as the