Keilah
Κεϊλά
Keilah (Κεϊλά LXX.; Κίλλα, Joseph. Antiq. 6.13.1; Κηλά, Euseb.), a city in the tribe of Judah (Josh. 15.44), 8 M. P. from Eleutheropolis. (Euseb. Onomast. s. v.) When the city was besieged by the Philistines, David relieved it, but the thankless inhabitants would have delivered him into the hands of Saul. (1 Sam. 23.1--13.) It assisted in the building of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 3.17, 18); and, according to tradition, the prophet Habakkuk was buried here. (Sozomen, H. E. 7.29; Niceph. H. E. 12.48; Reland, Palaest. p. 698; Winer, Biblisch. Realwört. s. v.; Von Raumer, Palest. p. 207.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.