10 ISRAel FINkelSTeIN a town named Gilead cannot be doubted. hosea (6,8) says that “Gilead is a city of wicked men, tracked with blood” (see also hos 12,12) 32. In a clear reference to a town, Num 32,39 describes how “the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it (hdklyw), and dispossessed the Amorites who were in it 33”. The existence of this town (“the town of ga-al-’a-‫׀‬a‫׀‬-[di]”/Gilead) is also clear from the de- scription of Tiglath-pileser III’s conquest of the Damascene territories in Transjordan cited above. The town of Gilead was located in the “land of Gilead” (and hence the origin of the name of the latter), that is, in the lower plateau south of the Jabbok and north of es-Salt 34. Indeed, in the center of this geographical unit one can find the village of Jal‘ad, the site of khirbet Jal‘ad, and, according to de Vaux 35, also Jebel Jal‘ad, all of which seem to preserve the name of the biblical town. Scholars identified the town of Gilead at the mainly Byzantine site of khirbet Jal‘ad 36. Yet, this site, which (possibly) yielded only a small amount of Iron Age pottery 37, is not prominently located. The village of Jal‘ad — referred to by Glueck 38 as a ruin named Jelud — did not produce pre-Byzantine sherds either. It is therefore possible that the name Jal‘ad originated from an older site somewhere near these places. Noth 39 suggested locating the town of Gilead in er- 32 M. NOTh, “Gilead und Gad”, ZDPV 75 (1959) 35-36 and n. 48; h.W. WOlFF, Hosea: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea (hermeneia; Philadel- phia, PA 1974) 122. 33 The Jephthah story ends by saying that he “was buried in his city in Gilead” (Judg 12,7 following the lXX; the hebrew says d[lg yr[b rbqyw)) theoretically either referring to d[lg wry[ (his city Gilead) or to the cities of Gilead mentioned in Josh 13,25; the former is preferable. The lucianic text and Josephus (Ant. 5, 270) read “in his city Ζεφε”, possibly referring to Zaphon (NelSON, “Ideology”, 359-360), because of the influence of Judg 12,1. 34 Details in FINkelSTeIN – kOch – lIPSchITS, “The Biblical Gilead”. 35 R. De VAuX, “Notes d’histoire et de topographie transjordaniennes”, RB 50 (1941) 16-47, here 28. 36 e.g., R. De VAuX, “explorations de la région de Salṭ”, RB 47 (1938) 398- 425, here 416-417; ID., “Notes d’histoire”, 28; N. Glueck, Explorations in Eastern Palestine, Band 3 (The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19; New haven, cT 1939) 231-232; NOTh, “Gilead und Gad”, 36-38; GASS, Die Ortsnamen des Richterbuchs, 480. 37 Glueck, Explorations in Eastern Palestine, 231-232; De VAuX, “explo- rations de la Région de Salṭ”, 416-417. 38 Glueck, Explorations in Eastern Palestine, 232. 39 M. NOTh, Könige. Band 1 (Bk 9; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1968) 237; see also J.J. SIMONS, The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament. A