APHEC (Heb. ’Āphīq and ’Āphēq, “fortress” or “watercourse”). — Name of five localities in Palestine.
1. Canaanite city in the hill country of Judah, whose king was defeated by Joshua (Ios. 12, 18 and 15, 52 [Aphecol]); it corresponds either to the present-day Fūqīn, 9 km west of Bethlehem, or to Ḥirbet ed-Darrame near the spring of ‘Ayn Dilbe.
2. City on the southern border of the tribe of Asher (Ios. 13, 14; 19, 30; Iudc. 1, 31), between Amma and Rohob; it remained inhabited by the Canaanites. It perhaps corresponds to Apqu in the Egyptian campaign of Esarhaddon (v.). It is the present-day Tell-Kurdāne, near the spring ‘Ayūn el-Baṣṣ, called Recordane by the Latins in the Middle Ages. It cannot be identified with the Greek Aphaka of Lebanon (present-day Afqa, 28 km west of Baalbek), famous for its temple of Venus (Astarte), which Constantine had destroyed (Eusebius, Vita Const., III, 55); for the frontiers of Israel never extended as far as Lebanon. It might instead be identified with the A. of I Sam. 29, 1 (cf. below under no. 4).
3. City near Ebenezer in the plain of Sharon, where the Philistines defeated the Hebrews and took the Ark of the Covenant (I Sam. 4, 1 ff.). It appears in the list of Thutmose III (no. 66: I-pw-q-n = Efeqon), and in the Egyptian “execration texts” (19th cent. B.C.). Today it is often identified with Megdel Jāba (Migdal Aphec of Flavius Josephus, Bell. Iud., II, 19, 1), 14 km north of Lydda; but in reality it is Qal‘at Rās el-‘Ain, Antipatris (v.), 3 km farther to the northwest, where traces of a settlement from the Bronze Age (ca. 2000 B.C.) have been found. Cf. F. M. Abel, Mirabel et la tour d’Aphek, in Revue Biblique, 36 (1927), pp. 390-400.
4. City in Jezreel (v.), beside the mountains of Gilboa, near which the Philistines defeated Saul (I Sam. 29, 1 ff.); it perhaps corresponds to the present-day Fuqū‘a. F.-M. Abel, however, identifies this with the preceding one. Cf. above under no. 2.
5. Place where Ahab, king of Israel, defeated Ben-hadad II, king of Syria (I Reg. 20, 26-30), and later Joash, king of Israel, defeated Ben-hadad III (II Reg. 13, 17-25). It is to be located east of the Sea of Tiberias; it corresponds to present-day Fiq in the Golan, 21/2 km east-northeast of el-Ḥoṣn (Hippos).