Keilah - This town was near Hebron, and is said to have been the burying-place of the prophet Habakkuk. David obliged the Philistines to raise the siege of it; (see 1 Samuel 23:1-13); but finding that its inhabitants had purposed to deliver him into the hands of Saul, who was coming in pursuit of him, he made his escape. See this remarkable case explained in the note on Deuteronomy 32:15 (note).

Mareshah - Called also Maresheth and Marasthi; it was the birth-place of the prophet Micah. Near this place was the famous battle between Asa, king of Judah, and Zera, king of Cush or Ethiopia, who was at the head of one thousand thousand men, and three hundred chariots. Asa defeated this immense host and took much spoil, 2 Chronicles 14:9-15.

And Keilah,.... The first of these is a well known city, which David saved from the hands of the Philistines, 1 Samuel 23:1, &c. In Jerom's time it was a little village to the east of Eleutheropolis, about eight miles from it, as you go to Hebron; in which was shown the sepulchre of the Prophet Habakkuk (b).

And Achzib is said to be on the borders of Asher, Joshua 19:29, and is supposed the same with Chezib, Genesis 38:5; and the Ecdippa of Josephus and others, and now called Zib; See Gill on Micah 1:14,

and Mareshah; Jerom says (c), only the ruins of it were to be seen two miles from Eleutheropolis:

nine cities with their villages; which is just their number.

(b) De loc. Heb. fol. 90. A. (c) lbid. fol. 93. E.

Keilah, which is mentioned in the history of David (1 Samuel 23), and then again after the captivity (Nehemiah 3:17), is neither the Κεελά, Ceila of the Onom., on the east of Eleutheropolis, the present Kila (Tobler, Dritte Wand. p. 151), which lies upon the mountains of Judah; nor is it to be found, as Knobel supposes, in the ruins of Jugaleh (Rob. iii. App.), as they lie to the south of the mountains of Hebron, whereas Keilah is to be sought for in the shephelah, or at all events to the west or south-west of the mountains of Hebron. Achzib (Micah 1:14), the same as Chesib (Genesis 38:5), has been preserved in the ruins at Kussbeh, a place with a fountain (Rob. ii. p. 391), i.e., the fountain of Kesba, about five hours south by west from Beit-jibrin. Mareshah, which was fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:8; cf. Micah 1:15), and was the place where Asa defeated Zerah the Ethiopian (2 Chronicles 14:9), the home of Eliezer (2 Chronicles 20:37), and afterwards the important town of Marissa (see v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 211-12), was between Hebron and Ashdod, since Judas Maccabaeus is represented in 1 Macc. 5:65-68 (where the reading should be Μαρίσσαν instead of Σαμάρειαν, according to Joseph. Ant. xii. 8, 6) as going from Hebron through Marissa into the land of the Philistines, and turning to Ashdod. According to the Onom. (s. v. Mareshah), it was lying in ruins in the time of Eusebius, and was about two Roman miles from Eleutheropolis-a description which applies exactly to the ruins of Maresh, twenty-four minutes to the south of Beit-jibrin, which Robinson supposes for this reason to be Maresa (Rob. ii. p. 422), whereas Knobel finds it in Beit-mirsim, a place four hours to the south of Beit-jibrin.

(Note: Knobel founds his opinion partly upon 2 Chronicles 14:9, according to which Mareshah was in the valley of Zephatah, which is the bason-like plain at Mirsim, and partly upon the fact that the Onom. also places Moraste on the east (south-east) of Eleutheropolis; and Jerome (ad Mich. Joshua 1:1) describes Morasthi as haud grandem viculum juxta Eleutheropolin, and as sepulcrum quondam Micheae prophetae nunc ecclesiam (Ephesians 108 ad Eustoch. 14); and this ecclesia is in all probability the ruins of a church called Santa Hanneh, twenty minutes to the south-east of Beit-jibrin, and only ten minutes to the east of Marash, which makes the assumption a very natural one, that the Maresa and Morasthi of the fathers are only different parts of the same place, viz., of Moreseth-gath, the home of Micah (Micah 1:1, Micah 1:14; Jeremiah 26:18). But neither of these is decisive. The valley of Zephatah might be the large open plain which Robinson mentions (ii. p. 355) near Beit-jibrin; and the conjecture that Morasthi, which Euseb. and Jer. place πρὸς ἀνατολὰς, contra orientem Eleutheropoleos, is preserved in the ruins which lie in a straight line towards the south from Beit-jibrin, and are called Marash, has not much probability in it.)

And Keilah, and Achzib, and Mareshah; nine cities with their villages:

15:20-63 Here is a list of the cities of Judah. But we do not here find Bethlehem, afterwards the city of David, and ennobled by the birth of our Lord Jesus in it. That city, which, at the best, was but little among the thousands of Judah, Mic 5:2, except that it was thus honoured, was now so little as not to be accounted one of the cities.