Helkath

Helkath ("smooth field") was a town in the inheritance of the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19:25) that was set apart as one of the forty-eight Levitical cities, assigned to the Gershonite branch of the Levites (Joshua 21:31, 1 Chronicles 6:75 where it is called Hukok). It lay in the Plain of Acco where the rich Asherite coastal plain met the lower Galilean hills. The site is identified with Tell el-Harbaj or with Tell el-Qassis at the eastern end of the Plain of Acco near the Kishon River, both of which preserve a sense of the original name. The Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III named Helkath among his catalogues of conquered Levantine towns at Karnak — confirming both its antiquity and its strategic location well before the Israelite settlement.