A Levitical city of Manasseh in the Transjordan (1 Chronicles 6:71), related to Ashtaroth (H6252), the principal Canaanite fertility and war goddess. The city bearing her name was assigned to the Gershonite Levites — a deliberate reclamation of territory consecrated to false worship.
That the Levites — priests and ministers of the living God — were assigned the city of Ashtaroth is a powerful act of theological displacement. What was a house of the goddess became a house of God's servants. This pattern runs throughout redemptive history: God reclaims, repurposes, and redeems the strongholds of the enemy. The promise to Abraham — that his descendants would possess the gates of their enemies (Genesis 22:17) — means that the very fortresses of darkness will become outposts of the kingdom. Where Ashtaroth was worshiped, the Levites now sang the songs of Zion.