A hillock
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The Hebrew noun gibah names a hill or smaller rise in the landscape. Hills can serve as lookout points, defensive positions, routes, pasture, settlement sites, poetic members of creation, or locations where people worship.
Reader summary
Full entry for גִּבְעָה (H1389) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun gibah names a hill or smaller rise in the landscape. Hills can serve as lookout points, defensive positions, routes, pasture, settlement sites, poetic members of creation, or locations where people worship.
The BSB source-word alignment has 71 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the hills (15), hill (9), hills (6), and hills (5), and the hills (5).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 49:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (13), Jeremiah (9), Ezekiel (8), 1 Samuel (6).
The Hebrew noun gibah names a hill or smaller rise in the landscape. Hills can serve as lookout points, defensive positions, routes, pasture, settlement sites, poetic members of creation, or locations where people worship. Because the same terrain can host faithful action, ordinary life, violence, or idolatry, elevation does not carry a fixed moral meaning. Prophets may address hills within poetic visions of judgment or renewal, and place-names such as Gibeah can preserve the noun without making every statement about that town a statement about hills in general.
Scripture sometimes pairs hills with mountains to describe the whole land or to picture creation responding to God. Readers should keep the common noun, a named location, and a literary image distinct. Gibah does not teach that being physically or institutionally high means being spiritually exalted, nor that low position means divine disfavor. The passage identifies who stands on the hill, what happens there, and how that action is evaluated.
Gibah describes a hill across travel, battle, worship, shepherding, creation poetry, and prophetic imagery, while named Gibeah locations and moral evaluations must be read from their own contexts.
The Benjamites rallied to Abner, formed a single unit, and took their stand atop a hill.
The Benjamites form one unit and take their stand on a hill during a violent pursuit, using elevation as tactical terrain.
They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Judah builds high places, pillars, and Asherah poles on hills, so the context condemns their worship rather than the landform itself.
My flock went astray on all the mountains and every high hill. They were scattered over the face of all the earth, with no one to search for them or seek them out.’
God's flock wanders over mountains and hills with no shepherd searching, making dispersed terrain part of an indictment of negligent leadership.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain.
Isaiah's comfort proclamation pictures every mountain and hill made low as the Lord's way is prepared and rugged terrain becomes passable.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow; the hills are robed with joy.
The psalm portrays wilderness pastures overflowing and hills robed with joy within praise for God's provision across the land.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Small elevated terrain, often serving as a fortified settlement or sanctuary location in ancient Israel
Small elevated terrain, often serving as a fortified settlement or sanctuary location in ancient Israel
a hillock BDB: hill Usage: hill, little hill.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
גִּבְעָה is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Gibah reminds readers that biblical landscapes are not empty symbols. A hill may give soldiers a tactical position, provide pasture for wandering sheep, hold a settlement, or become the site of corrupt worship. The terrain enables or locates action, but it does not sanctify the action. First Kings condemns idols established on hills, while Psalm 65 pictures hills sharing creation's joy in God's provision.
Ezekiel uses scattered flocks across hills to expose shepherds who failed to seek them. Isaiah can picture hills lowered in a poetic proclamation that the Lord's way will be prepared. These witnesses resist a simple equation in which height always means closeness to God or lowliness always means shame. Faithful teaching follows the genre and actors instead of turning topography into a secret code.
That discipline also protects communities from leaders who describe their office, platform, or visibility as an elevated place beyond correction. Biblical authority rests in God's truth and calling, not in physical height, public prominence, or a prestigious location.
Ezek.34.6
Gibah is a feminine Hebrew common noun for a hill or small elevation. It can appear as ordinary terrain, in poetic pairs with mountains, and within place-names such as Gibeah or hill-related compounds. The translator's capitalization and the surrounding geography help distinguish place-name from common noun.
The New Testament continues to use mountains and elevated places in narrative and teaching, but their significance comes from each event and saying. Isaiah 40's prepared way is applied to John's ministry, while Jesus consistently locates authority in God's will rather than public height or status.