| abstract | - Tell en-Nasbeh is an archaeological site northwest of Jerusalem believed by some to be the Biblical Mizpah in Benjamin. Nasbeh was excavated by William F. Badè of the Pacific School of Religion from 1926-1935. Badè died before he was able to publish his findings. The original dig records have been analyzed and published by Jeffrey R. Zorn of Cornell University. Tell en-Nasbeh was a small village in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze I periods. It was then abandoned until the tenth century (Iron Age) when it became a sizeble agricultural village. By Iron Age II it was a walled settlement with a massive city gate on the frontier between the northern and southern Israelite kingdoms. A new strata appears at the time of the Babylonian conquest (586 BCE) signifying the town's new role as the Babylonian administrative center for the district of Binyamin. However, if Mizpah in Benjamin was Tell en-Nasbeh on the Nablus road, Ishmael who had assassinated Gedaliah would not have fled to Ammon via Gibeon which is located to the West near Neby Samwil which overlooks Jerusalem. Furthermore, Judas Machabeus, preparing for war with the Syrians, gathered his men "to Maspha, over against Jerusalem: for in Maspha was a place of prayer heretofore in Israel".
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