Biblical Identification
Henry B. Tristram (1884) writes of Bayt 'Itab that it crowned "a remarkable rocky knoll," which he states is, "probably, the Rock Etam." Noting that an ancient tunnel ran down from the village eastward through the rock to the chief spring, he speculates that this would have made a good hiding place for Samson when according to biblical tradition, he "went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam" (Book of Judges, xv. 8).
John William McGarvey (1881) writes that it was Lieutenant C. R. Conder, of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), who first identified Bayt ʿIṭāb as the site of Etam. Garvey quotes Conder on the linguistic evidence: "The substitution of B for M is so common (as in Tibneh for Timnah) that the name Atab may very properly represent the Hebrew Etam (eagle's nest); and there are other indications as to the identity of the site."
In Conder's Survey of Western Palestine (1881), he notes that the name of the "curious cave" at Bayt ʿIṭāb in Arabic is Bir el-Has Utah. Unable to find a meaning for the word in Arabic, he finds it corresponds to the Hebrew word Hasutah, " which is translated 'a place of refuge.' Thus the name seems to indicate that this place has been used from a very early time as a lurking or hiding place, as we gather it to have been in the time of Samson." McGarvey also relays Conder's belief that the cavern within the rock formation was "the real hiding place" of Samson after his destruction of the Philistine's grains.
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