tob Summary and Overview

(good), The land of, a place in which Jephthah took refuge when expelled from home by his half-brother, #Jud 11:3| and where he remained, at the head of a band of freebooters, till he was brought back by the sheikhs of Gilead. ver. 5. The narrative implies that the land of Tob was not far distant from Gilead; at the same time, from the nature of the case it must have lain out toward the eastern deserts. It is undoubtedly mentioned again in #2Sa 10:6,8| as Ishtob, i.e. man of Tob, meaning, according to a common Hebrew idiom, the men of Tob. After a long interval it appears again, in the Maccabaean history, 1 Macc. 5:13, in the names Tobie and Tubieni. 2 Macc. 12:17. No identification of the ancient, district with any modern one has yet been attempted.

TOB (good), the place or district beyond the Jordan to which Jephthah fled, Jud 11:3, 1 Chr 6:5; also called Ish-tob. 2 Sam 10:6, 2 Sam 10:8. It lay beyond Gilead, toward the eastern deserts. There is a modern place called Taiyibet, an Arabic form of "Tob," 12 miles south-east of the Sea of Galilee, which would identify it with the southern part of Bashan.

("good".) Where Jephthah was expelled by his stepbrothers; here he gathered to him a band of freebooters; from Tob the elders of Gilead brought him to oppose Ammon. Toward the desert E. of Gilead. Ish-tob, i.e. the men of Tob, supported the Ammonites against David (2 Samuel 10:6; 2 Samuel 10:8). Ptolemy (Geogr. v. 19) mentions a Thauba S.W. of Zobah, probably N.E. of Ammon. There is a Tell Dobbe or Dibbe, a ruined site S. of the Lejah.