Nobah
NOBAH (nō'ba, Heb. nōvâh, barking)
A man of Manasseh in the days of Moses, who in the conquest of the land of Bashan took the city of Kenath from the Amorites (Num.32.42).A town in the neighborhood of which Gideon finally defeated the Midianites and took their kings (Judg.8.11).
NOBAH nō’ bə (נֹ֣בַח). 1. A Manassite leader (Num 32:42) who conquered Kenath and its villages and called the place Nobah. Numbers 32:33 speaks of Moses’ apportionment of the territories of Sihon and Og to Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. Presumably Nobah was a Manassite, and Kenath-Nobah is in the specified territory.
2. Judges 8:11 refers to Nobah as on the caravan route E of Succoth in the neighborhood of Jogbehah. Karkor is mentioned (Judg 8:10) as lying farther to the E. There Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian, had their army. Gideon went eastward beyond Nobah and Jogbehah along the caravan route, defeated the army, and captured the two kings. The location of Karkor is unknown.
S. Cohen (The Interpreter’s Dictionary of The Bible, Vol. III, 6) points out that the old name of Nobah (Kenath) occurs at 1 Chronicles 2:23. He thinks the site is the modern “Qanawat in el-Hauran, northeast of es-Suweideh, a city of the Druses.” Cohen (op. cit. II, 929) equates Jogbehah with Khirbet el-Ajbeihat, seven m. NW of Amman. The site is known also as el-Jubeihat (The Macmillan Bible Atlas, index and p. 54). The general location of Nobah is known, but no exact site has been proposed.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
(nobhah; Codex Vaticanus Naboth, Nabai; Codex Alexandrinus Naboth, Nabeth):
(1) Nobah the Manassite, we are told, "went and took Kenath, and the villages thereof, and called it Nobah, after his own name" (Nu 32:42). There can be little doubt that the ancient Kenath is represented by the modern Qanawat, on the western slope of Jebel ed-Druze, the ancient name having survived that of Nobah.
(2) A city which marked-the course of Gideon’s pursuit of the Midianites (Jud 8:11). It is possible that this may be identical with (1). Cheyne argues in favor of this (Encyclopaedia Biblica, under the word "Gideon"). But its mention along with Jogbehah points to a more southerly location. This may have been the original home of the clan Nobah. Some would read, following the Syriac in Nu 21:30, "Nobah which is on the desert," instead of "Nophah which reacheth unto Medeba." No site with a name resembling this has yet been recovered. If it is to be distinguished from Kenath, then probably it will have to be sought somewhere to the Northeast of Rabbath-Ammon (`Amman).