Moresheth Gath
MORESHETH GATH (mō'rĕsh-ĕth găth, possession of Gath). A town mentioned only in Mic.1.14 in a group of places in the Judah-Philistine border area. Micah calls himself an inhabitant of Moresheth (Mic.1.1; Jer.26.18)—probably the same place. Gath may have been added to the name to indicate that this was the Moresheth that is near Gath. It may be identified with Tell ej-Judeideh, about five miles (eight km.) west of Gath in the Shephelah.
MORESHETH-GATH môr’ ə shĕth găth (Heb. מוֹרֶ֣שֶׁת גַּ֑ת, possession of Gath), a city mentioned in Micah 1:14. Moresheth is not an appellative, as the old trs. suppose, but the name of a city; the addition Gath is to define more precisely Moresheth’s situation as in the vicinity of Gath, or as belonging to Gath. According to Eusebius its situation was just E of Eleutheropolis. It is identified with the modern Tell ej-Judeideh, about five m. W of Gath, and about twenty m. SW of Jerusalem. The prophet Micah is denoted as “the Morasthite” (1:1), the gentilic adjective of a shortened form of the name, Moresheth. This home town of the prophet was prob. to be identified with Moresheth-Gath (cf. Jer 26:18).
The map of Medeba shows a vignette NE of Eleutheropolis with the note: “Morasthi, from which the prophet Micah came.”
Some scholars identify our place with Mareshah (cf. Micah 1:15; Josh 15:44), but unjustly so. Both places are in the vicinity of Eleutheropolis.
Bibliography
J. Jeremias, “Moresheth-Gath, die Heimat des Propheten Micha,” PJB, 29 (1933), 42-53; K. Elliger, “Die Heimat des Propheten Micha,” ZDPV, 57 (1934), 119ff.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
mo’-resh-eth-gath, mo-resh’-eth-gath (moresheth gath, "inheritance or possession of Gath"; Septuagint kleronomias Geth): A place mentioned only in Mic 1:14. It must have been in the vicinity of Gath as the meaning of the name would indicate, and was the home of the prophet Micah (Mic 1:1; Jer 26:18). It was probably in the vicinity of Mareshah (Mic 1:15). Jerome, in his preface to his work on Micah, places it a little to the East of Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin), and it would be natural to find it there if the latter place was Gath as some think. Robinson (BR, II, 68) found ruins of a village between one and two miles East of Beit Jibrin. It must have been among the foot-hills of Judah between the hill country and the Philistine plain on the route from Jerusalem to Lachish, Gaza and Egypt. Mareshah was certainly in that region, and the prophecy of Micah mentions towns and villages in the Shephelah and the Philistine country as though they were familiar to him (see HGHL and G. A. Smith, "Micah," in his Minor Prophets).