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Eretz English Safi Article 7 16 Photo: Samson at the Dagon Temple, ARCHAEOLOGY Judges 16:30 (Gustave Dore) “Tell it not in Gath” Today there is widespread consensus in academic circles that Tel es-Safi is the site of the Philistine city of Gath, which gained fame as the home of David’s foe Goliath. The excavations that Prof. Aren Maeir has been conducting at Tel es-Safi for two decades have completely changed the thinking on the Philistines and their relations with the Israelite tribes. > by ERETZ Staff he Bible mentions Gath more than 20 times, anchor- between the Israelites and the Philistines: “Once Samson T ing it in historical memory as a major city. The first went down to Timnah; and while in Timnah, he noticed a reference to this Philistine city appears in the Book of girl among the Philistine women. On his return, he told Joshua (13: 3), when God outlines the boundaries of the his father and mother, ‘I noticed one of the Philistine promised land to the elderly Joshua, listing the parts that women in Timnah; please get her for me as a wife.’ His have yet to be conquered: “From the Shihor, which is father and mother said to him, ‘Is there no one among the close to Egypt, to the territory of Ekron on the north, are daughters of your own kinsmen and among all our people, accounted Canaanite, namely, those of the five lords of the that you must go and take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines – the Gazites, the Ashdodites, the Philistines?’ But Samson answered his father, ‘Get me that Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites – and those one, for she is the one that pleases me.’ His father and of the Avim.” This was the eastern border of the land of mother did not realize that this was the Lord’s doing: He the Philistines, where it bordered the kingdom of Judah. was seeking a pretext against the Philistines, for the The love-hate relations between the Jews and the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time” (Judges Philistines are expressed in the Bible stories about 14:1-4). Samson. He is the twelfth judge in the biblical narratives. Samson loved Philistine women. The woman from His father Manoah was from Zorah, in the territory of the Timnah was the first of Samson's three Philistine women. Tribe of Dan. Zorah was on the Philistine border, on the On his way to visit her, he killed a lion, in whose carcass southern coastal plain and the approach to the Judean he would later discover a beehive that inspired his famous Lowlands. This is where the “spirit of the Lord first moved riddle, “Out of the eater came something to eat, Out of [Samson] in the encampment of Dan, between Zorah and the strong came something sweet” (Judges 14:14). Eshtaol” (Judges 13:25), while he was being raised as a During the wedding festivities, his bride betrayed his con- Nazirite, honoring the prohibitions against cutting his fidence and revealed the answer to the riddle to her fami- hair or drinking wine. ly, obligating him to provide them with “thirty linen tunics Samson’s first actions reveal the complex relations and thirty sets of clothing” (Judges 14:12). Samson angri- 30 | ERETZ Magazine ARCHAEOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY All of these events were recorded long after the this time, Gath has invariably been mentioned in the list Philistines had disappeared from the world and their cit- of Philistine cities….But, after this time, the names of the ies had been destroyed. The biblical narratives preserve other four cities are given without Gath – by Amos him- the cloudy memories of the love-hate relations between self, by Jeremiah, by Zephaniah, and in the Book of the Israelites and the Philistines. Some of the details con- Zechariah – and Gath does not again appear in either the tain faint echoes of actual historic facts; Achish, for exam- Old Testament, or the Books of the Maccabees, or those ple, was the name of a Philistine dynasty and Gath, as a parts of Josephus which treat of centuries subsequent to Philistine city, did have enormous gates. It is not clear the eighth. This can only mean that Gath, both place and how or if Samson managed to carry gates like these to the name, was totally destroyed about 750 B.C.; and renders outskirts of Hebron, but their size connects the archaeo- valueless all statements as to the city’s site which are based logical finds to the biblical narrative to some degree. on evidence subsequent to that date.” Since the beginning of biblical archaeological research In 1898, the British Palestine Exploration Fund sent of the holy land began, in the nineteenth century, search- Frederick J. Bliss and Robert A. S. Macalister to search for ing for traces of the Philistines has been a central part of Gath, the missing Philistine city. They excavated attempts to identify where the events of the Bible Mareshah, Tel Judeideh, and Tel Azekah, but did not find occurred. Edward Robinson, considered the father of bib- evidence of settlements there during the Iron Age. They lical archaeology, set out in 1838 on an extensive trip to finally arrived at Tel es-Safi, located in the village of a-Safi. explore the holy land. On March 8, he visited Kafr Akir, The village houses had been built on the ruins of the large identifying it as the Philistine city of Ekron, which the Crusader fortress that had been built on a prominent hill- Bible describes as the northernmost of the five Philistine top facing the Moslem city of Ashkelon. After conducting cities. He also concluded that the battle between David a basic survey they decided that Tel es-Safi’s location, Above: Sign at the entrance to the Tel Gath (Zafit) National Park (Avishai Tiecher). and Goliath occurred in what is today known as the Valley ancient remains, and the large area it encompassed all of Ela. Asdud he identified as the Philistine city of indicate that it was the site of the city of Achish, Gath. ly made his way to Ashkelon, slaughtered 30 Philistines, Philistine banquet at the temple of Dagon, during which Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza were known, and as for bibli- The ancient international highway connecting Egypt and gave their clothing to his bride’s family. When he the prisoner’s superhuman strength returned and he man- cal Gath, the last of the five cities, he concluded that to the with Mesopotamia runs at the foot of the tell, and it is calmed down and decided to reconcile with her, he dis- aged to uproot the pillars supporting the temple, bringing best of his knowledge, no sign of it remained. only a short journey from there to the Ela Valley that pro- covered that her father had married her off to someone down its roof to end the lives of all the revelers as well as George Adam Smith, the Scottish theologian who was vides easy access to the mountain backbone and the route else. Samson’s temper flared again; he caught 300 foxes, his own. the first to coin the term historical geography, also set out along the mountain connecting Hebron, Jerusalem and tied torches to their tails, and set them loose on the Relations between the Philistines and Israelites did not to search for the Philistines, a quest he described in his Shechem. The tell’s name “the shiny place,” is a reference Philistines’ fields of grain, vineyards, and olive orchards, improve later in the biblical narrative. The Philistines cap- 1894 book, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. In to the shiny, white bedrock that is exposed on its western which quickly burned to the ground. The Israelites agreed tured the Israelites’ holy ark of God in battle, but it only the book he dedicated an entire chapter to “The side. to hand Samson over to the furious Philistines, but brought them trouble, so they returned it. When the sides Philistines and Their Cities." The Philistines reached the For 20 years, Tel es-Safi was crowned as the city of Samson, armed only with the jawbone of an ass, succeed- met for another round in the ongoing battle, Goliath, the holy land via Egypt, but originally came from Crete, Goliath and Achish. ed to fight them off, slaughtering 1,000 Philistines. giant from Gath, emerged to challenge the Israelites. A writes Smith. Like many who came after him, he notes the Then, in the 1920s, William Foxwell Albright, director Samson did not have much luck with his next romance brave youth by the name of David rose to the challenge parallels between the history of the Philistines and the of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem either. She too was a Philistine – a prostitute from Gaza. and fell him with a slingshot. The same youth later fled children of Israel, writing, “Both Philistines and Hebrews and one of the senior biblical researchers of the day, iden- When the Philistines tried to capture him, he stole out of from King Saul and sought refuge with Achish, king of were immigrants into the land for whose possession they tified Tell ’Erni as Gath, and thus it remained for many her home in the middle of the night, tore the doors and Gath. David quickly realized the risks inherent in that and fought through centuries…. Indeed, so fully were the decades. As a result of this identification Kibbutz Gath gateposts of the city from their hinges, and carried them pretended to be crazy with fear.
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