Ebenezer

Ebenezer is the place beside which Israel camped for the battle in which the ark was lost: “Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped beside Ebenezer; and the Philistines encamped in Aphek” (1 Samuel 4:1). Israel was defeated, God's ark was taken, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain (1 Samuel 4:10–11). “Now the Philistines had taken God’s ark, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod” (1 Samuel 5:1).

After the ark had stayed twenty years in Kiriath Jearim (1 Samuel 7:2), Samuel set up a stone “between Mizpah and Shen” and named it Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:12). Whether the camp was called by that later name or was a different place is not certain: Israel's camp faced the Philistines at Aphek, while Samuel's stone stood between Mizpah and Shen. The camp's site has not been identified with certainty.