Shaalbim

Shaal'bim (Heb. Shaalbim', שִׁעֲלבַי ם, according to Furst = בֵּית שׁוּעִלַי ם, house [i.e. place] offoxes; Sept. Σαλαβίν, Σαλαβείμ, v.r. Θααλαβείν, Βηθαλαμεί, and even αἱ ἀλώπεκες) occurs in an ancient fragment of history inserted in Judges 1, enumerating the towns of which the original inhabitants of Canaan succeeded in keeping possession after the general conquest. Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim were held against the Danites by the Amorites (ver. 35) till, the help of the great tribe of Ephraim being called in, they were at last compelled to succumb. It is mentioned with Aijalon again in Jos 19:42 (Shaalabbin), and with Bethshemesh both there and in 1Ki 4:9, in the last passage as making up one of Solomon's commissariat districts.. By Eusebius and Jerome it is mentioned in the Onomasticon (s.v. 'Selab') as a large village in the district of Sebaste (i.e. Samaria), and as then called Selaba. But this is not very intelligible, for, except in the statement of Josephus (Ant. 5, 1, 22) that the allotment of the Danites extended as far north as Dor (Tantura), there is nothing to lead to the belief that any of their towns were at all near Samaria (see Schwarz, Palest. p. 140), while the persistent enumeration of Shaalbim with Aijalon and Beth-shemesh, the sites of both which are known with tolerable certainty as within a radius of fifteen miles west of Jerusalem, is strongly against it. It is also at variance with another notice of Jerome, in his commentary on Eze 48:22, where he mentions the 'towers of Ailon and Selebi and Emmaus-Nicopolis,' in connection with Joppa, as three landmarks of the tribe of Dan." Shaalbim may possiblv be identified with the modern village Beit Sira, a village a little north of Yalo, on the south side of Wady Suleiman; or, perhaps (so Furst), rather with Selbit, a ruined village north of the wady (Robinson, Researches, 1852, 3, 144, notes). SEE SHAALBONITE.