Bezek

Bezek was a town in the central highlands where two pivotal early-Israelite military musterings took place. In Judges 1:4-7, the tribe of Judah — joined by Simeon — defeated the Canaanite king Adoni-bezek there at the start of the post-Joshua conquest. After the battle they cut off Adoni-bezek's thumbs and big toes, the same brutality he had inflicted on seventy other defeated kings whom he had reduced to scavenging crumbs under his table. Generations later, Bezek became the rallying point where King Saul mustered all Israel — 330,000 fighting men — to march east across the Jordan and relieve Jabesh-gilead from the cruel siege of Nahash king of the Ammonites (1 Samuel 11:8-11). The location of Bezek of Judges 1 is uncertain; the Saul-era Bezek is identified with Khirbet Ibziq about twelve miles northeast of Shechem, perfectly placed to gather northern and southern tribes before the descent to the Jordan Valley.