Beth-pelet

Beth-pelet ("house of escape" or "house of deliverance") was a town in the far south of Judah's inheritance, listed among "the uttermost cities of the tribe of the people of Judah toward the boundary of Edom in the South" (Joshua 15:27). After the Babylonian exile, the descendants of Judah resettled Beth-pelet as part of the broader reoccupation of the Negev under Nehemiah: "the people of Judah lived in Kiriath-arba and its villages... in Moladah, Beth-pelet, in Hazar-shual, in Beersheba and its villages" (Nehemiah 11:25-26). The location is uncertain — proposed identifications include Tell el-Sa'ide or Khirbet el-Meshash in the eastern Beersheba basin. The "Pelet" element of the name surfaces also in the Calebite genealogy (1 Chronicles 2:47) and in David's mighty-men list, where two warriors are called Pelethites — perhaps mercenaries from the same region.