MOLADAH, mŏl’ ə də (Heb. מﯴלָדָֽה, generation). A city in the Negev, not far from Beer-Sheba (Josh 15:26), allotted to the Simeonites (Josh 19:2; 1 Chron 4:28). In the postexilic period Moladah was one of the villages where “the people of Judah” settled (Neh 11:26). This region was afterward occupied by the Edomites, and Molada became an Idumaean fortress, called Μάλαδα (Jos. Antiq. 18. VI. 2). Eusebius and Jerome describe it as being twenty Roman m. to the S of Hebron on the road to Aila (E-lath). The site is uncertain. Some scholars identify it with Tell el Milh, fourteen m. SE of Beer-sheba, twenty-two m. SW of Hebron; according to others it is the ruins of El-Eksefa, E of Beer-sheba. The idea that Moladah was a shrine where women came to pray for children, cannot be deduced from the name as such. Since one of the descendants of Jerahmeel bore the name Molid (1 Chron 2:29), it has been suggested that Moladah was a part of the Jerahmeelite settlement, which is known to have been in the S of Judah (1 Sam 27:10). This, however, is uncertain.

Bibliography D. Baly, Geographical Companion to the Bible (1963).