Aphik

also known as: Aphek

Meaning: stronghold

This was the name of 3 biblical cities.

  1. Aphik, a city of the tribe of Asher (Judges 1:31)

    It was the scene of the licentious worship of the Syrian Aphrodite. The ruins of the temple, “magnificent ruins” in a “spot of strange wildness and beauty,” are still seen at Afka, on the northwest slopes of Lebanon, near the source of the river Adonis (now Nahr Ibrahim), 12 miles east of Gebal.

  2. Aphek, a city of the tribe of Issachar, near to Jezreel (1 Samuel 4:1; 29:1—compare 28:4)

  3. Aphek, a town east of the Sea of Galilee, on the road from Damascus to Israel, in the level plain east of Jordan, near which Ben-hadad was defeated by the Israelites (1 Kings 20:26, 30; 2 Kings 13:17)

    It later became the Syrian village of Fiq (aka Fik), later abandoned. There is now an Israeli settlement called Kibbutz Afik adjacent to what is believed to be the ruins of ancient Aphek.

    Kibbutz Afik, Israel

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