Achzib
ACHZIB ăk’ zĭb (אַכְזִ֖יב, lying, deceptive, disappointing). 1. A boundary city of Asher on the Mediterranean coast (Josh 19:29) from which the Asherites were not able to drive out the Canaanites with whom they then lived (Judg 1:31). Eusebius places Achzib on the road from Ptolemais to Tyre. In NT times it was called Ecdippa, now identified with modern ez-Zib, eleven m. from Acco.
2. A city of the shephelah of Judah, prob. to be identified with Chezib in Genesis 38:5, where several of Judah’s sons were born, and with Cozeba (KJV Chozeba) in 1 Chronicles 4:21 where the men of Cozeba are called “sons of Shelah the son of Judah.” In Joshua 15:44 Achzib is in the city lists of Judah and Simeon between Keilah and Mareshah, and so, as in Genesis 38:5, not far from Adullam, Micah makes a play on the meaning of Achzib saying, “...the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel” (Mic 1:14). It is tentatively identified with modern Tell el-Beida.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
The name of two towns in Palestine:
(1) A town in western Judah in the lowlands, mentioned in connection with Mareshah and Keilah as one of the cities allotted to Judah (Jos 15:44), and in Mic (1:14), where it suggests play upon its meaning, "deceptive" or "failing," possibly the place having received its name from a winter spring or brook, which failed in summer. It is also called Chezib (kezibh (Ge 38:5)), where Judah was at the time of the birth of his son Shelah. In 1Ch 4:22 it is called Cozeba, the King James Version "Chozeba" (kozebha’), clearly seen to be the same as Achzib, from the places with which it is grouped.
(2) It has been identified with the modern `Ayin-Kezbeh in the valley of Elah, and north of Adullam.
Edward Mack
(3) Mod Zib Septuagint variously: Jos 19:29, Codex Vaticanus, Echozob, Codex Alexandrinus, Achzeiph; Jud 1:31, Codex Vaticanus, Aschazei, Codex Alexandrinus, Aschendei, Greek Ecdippa: A small town some miles north of Acre on the coast. It is mentioned in Jos 19:29 as falling within the possessions of the tribe of Asher, but they never occupied it, as they did not the neighboring Acre (Acco). The Phoenician inhabitants of the coast were too strongly entrenched to be driven out by a people who had no fleet. The cities on the coast doubtless aided one another, and Sidon had become rich and powerful before this and could succor such a small town in case of attack. Achzib was a coast town, nine miles north of Acco, now known as Ez-Zib. It appears in the Assyrian inscriptions as Aksibi and Sennacherib enumerates it among the Phoenician towns that he took at the same times as Acco (702 BC). It was never important and is now an insignificant village among the sand dunes of the coast. It was the bordertown of Galilee on the west, what lay beyond being unholy ground.