▼Knobel is decidedly wrong in his supposition, that Libnah is to be seen in the considerable ruins called Hora, which lie in the plain (Seetzen and V. de Velde) and are called Hawara by Robinson. He founds his conjecture upon the fact that the name signifies white, and is the Arabic translation of the Hebrew name. But Hora is only two hours and a half to the north of Beersheba, and is not in the plain at all, but in the Negeb.

▼The statement in 1 Macc. 7:45, that Judas Maccabaeus pursued the army of Nicanor, which had been beaten at Adasa, for a day’s journey, as far as Gazera (“a day’s journey from Adasa into Gazera”), is perfectly reconcilable with the situation of el Kubab; for, according to Josephus (Ant. xii. 10, 5), Adasa was thirty stadia from Bethhoron, and Bethhoron is ten miles to the west of Jubab (measuring in a straight line upon the map); so that Judas pursued the enemy fifteen miles - a distance which might very well be called “a day’s journey,” if we consider that the enemy, when flying, would not always take the straightest road, and might even make a stand at intervals, and so delay their pursuers. Still less do the statement in 1 Macc. 14:34, that Simon fortified Joppa on the sea, and Gazara on the border of Ashdod, the combination of Joppa, Gazara, and the tower that is in Jerusalem (1 Macc. 15:28, 35), and the fact that the country of Gadaris, with the town of Gadara, occurs between Joppa and Jamnia in Strabo xvi. 759, warrant us in making a distinction between Gazara (Gezer) and the place mentioned in the Onom., as Grimm does (on 1 Macc. 4:15), and identifying it with the village of Jazûr, an hour and a half from Jaffa, although Arvieux calls this village Gesser. The objections of Van de Velde against the identity of Jubab and Gazer are without any force. It does not necessarily follow from the expression “went up,” that Lachish stood on higher ground than Gezer, as going up often signifies nothing more than making a hostile attack upon a fortification. And no importance can be attached to the conjecture, that with the great distance of Jubab from Um Lakis, the king of Gezer would have come to the help of the kings of Makkedah and Libnah, who were much nearer and were attacked first, as the circumstances which determined his conduct are too thoroughly unknown to us, for it to be possible to pronounce an opinion upon the subject with any certainty.