Gebal

One of the earliest villages in Phoenicia and Syria, along with Ras Shamra and Tell Judeideh. The Greeks called it Byblos, meaning "books." It was on the Mediterranean, 32.2 kilometers (20 miles) north of modern Beirut. It was an important commercial center and outlet for Lebanon's hardwoods when it was an Egyptian colony and Egypt's interests reached all over Syria.

The Amarna letters, written from 1400 to 1350 BC, called it a city-kingdom. Seal impressions from a very early period suggest it was on a major trade route through Palestine and Syria. The people who lived there were called Gebalites (Joshua 13:5). The Gebalites were great traders. But, their greatest success was a syllable based alphabet based on Egyptian. It was passed on from Phoenicia to Greece until it became the ancestor of our own alphabet.

A territory southeast of the Dead Sea. It was listed with Ammon and Amalek as areas hostile to Israel (Psalm 83:7).