Segub

Biblical Account

Segub appears only once in Scripture, in 1 Kings 16:34. During the reign of King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He lost his firstborn son, Abiram, when he laid the city's foundation, and his youngest son, Segub, when he set up its gates. Scripture records that this took place "according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun." Nothing else is recorded about Segub's life.

The Segub who appears in 1 Chronicles 2:21–22 as the son of Hezron and the father of Jair is a different man of the same name.

Significance Within Scripture

This account is presented as the fulfillment of the curse that Joshua pronounced after the fall of Jericho: whoever rebuilt Jericho would lose his firstborn son when laying its foundation and his youngest son when setting up its gates (Joshua 6:26). The book of 1 Kings places this incident at the end of the passage introducing the reign of Ahab. The account is read as evidence that God's word, pronounced centuries earlier, was fulfilled exactly, and as an illustration of how lightly that generation regarded the word of God. Segub is not mentioned in the New Testament.

Interpretation and Debate

The text does not state how the two sons died. The traditional and widely held interpretation is that they died by accident or illness as a judgment from God. Some scholars, however, connect the account with the so-called "foundation sacrifice," an ancient Near Eastern practice of offering human victims when laying the foundation or setting up the gates of a building, and suggest that Hiel may have sacrificed his sons. This view is a conjecture that the text does not directly state, and many scholars reject it.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, Segub is rarely treated as a subject in his own right; he is more often mentioned alongside his older brother Abiram in discussions of the fulfillment of Joshua 6:26.