Juttah, Jutah
juta, joota (, yuttah, Jos 21:16; Septuagint , Tanu; and in Jos 15:55 the King James Version, Septuagint , Itan, A, Ietta); joota, juta (, yatah, Jos 15:55): A town in the hill country of Judah, mentioned with Maon, Carmel and Ziph; a Levitical city (Jos 21:16). In some versions of Septuagint it occurs (, Iota) in 1Ch 6:57. In the Eusebius, Onomasticon (266 49; 133 10) a large village called Juttah is described as 18 Roman miles from Eleutheropolis. This agrees with the position of Yutta, a large and prosperous Moslem village, 3,740 ft. above sea-level, 5 1/3 miles South of Hebron and 15 1/2 miles from Beit Jebrn (Eleutheropolis). There are many rock-cut tombs and ancient winepresses all around the village.
Reland (Pal, 870) suggested (and many others have followed him) that the , polis Iouda, translated city of Judah, in Luk 1:39, should be polis Iouda, the city Yuta. The translation city of Judah is suspicious, because Iouda is without the article, which is usually put before the name of a district; the interchange of t and d is a very common one. Dr. Paterson, resident many years in Hebron, states that there is a local Moslem tradition in the district that Yutta was the home of John the Baptist. For Yutta see PEF, III, 310, Sh XXI.