Beth-anath

Beth-anath ("house of [the goddess] Anath") was one of nineteen fortified cities allotted to the tribe of Naphtali in the upper Galilee hills (Joshua 19:38). The town's name preserves the cult of the Canaanite warrior-goddess Anath, sister-consort of Baal in the Ugaritic texts — testifying to the long pre-Israelite religious heritage of the region. When Israel settled the land, Naphtali could not drive out the Canaanites of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath, and so the Canaanites lived among them — though they did pay forced labor to the Israelites (Judges 1:33). The town is generally identified with modern Safad el-Battikh or el-Ba'neh in the western Galilee mountains north of Acco. The Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II claimed to have captured Beth-anath during his Levantine campaigns — confirming both its fortified strength and its importance well before the Israelite settlement.