ak'-zib ('akhzibh, "lying" or "disappointing"): 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 (Joshua 15:44), and in Micah (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 (Genesis 38:5)), where Judah was at the time of the birth of his son Shelah. In 1 Chronicles 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: Joshua 19:29, Codex Vaticanus, Echozob, Codex Alexandrinus, Achzeiph; Judges 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 Joshua 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 B.C.). 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.

H. Porter