Modern archaeologists identify the ancient site with a tell lying on a flat, alluvial plain, located in the Sorek Valley ca.

[2][1] Tel Batash is strategically located in the Sorek Valley, an access point from the Coastal Plain through the Shephelah and into the Central Judean Mountains.

In Genesis 38:13, a place called Timnah (Timnath) is mentioned in the context of the story of the Hebrew patriarch Judah and Tamar.

Some think that Judah may have gone to this Timnah (Tibna) to shear his sheep, when he met his daughter-in-law in passing,[3] while others suggest that this would have happened in the Timnath now known in Arabic as Khirbet et-Tibbaneh.

[4][5][6] In Joshua 15:10, a place with this name is mentioned as a point on the border of the Tribe of Judah, and Judges 14:5 refers to Timnah's vineyards.

Tel Batash was first settled in the Middle Bronze Age by creating an earthen rampart that enclosed the 10 acre (4 hectare) site.

[17] Today, modern archaeologists think the biblical Timnath (Timnah) associated with the saga of Samson to have been situated where Tell Butashi is now located and where extensive archaeological excavations had been conducted during the 1970s–1980s.