(Helʹkath) [Smooth Place].

A city listed among the boundary sites of the tribe of Asher (Jos 19:24, 25, 31), later assigned to the Gershonites as a Levite city. (Jos 21:27, 30, 31) It appears at 1 Chronicles 6:75 with the variant spelling of Hukok. Its location is conjectural. Some have identified it with Khirbet el-Harbaj (Tel Regev), 18 km (11 mi) S of Acco and near the base of the Carmel mountain range. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary edited by J. D. Douglas (1980, Vol. 2, p. 634) considers as “perhaps even better, Tell el-Qasis,” about 9 km (5.5 mi) S of Khirbet el-Harbaj, lying at the entrance to the Valley of Jezreel. Since the towns of Hali and Beten, mentioned after Helkath in the list at Joshua 19:24-26, are generally considered to have been in the southern part of the Plain of Acco, such identification with Tell el-Qasis (Tel Qashish) would indicate a boundary description beginning in the extreme SE corner of the Plain of Acco, rather than one beginning in the north and running south. Further identification of other towns is needed, however, to determine this.