When Gath of the Philistines Became Gath of Judah: Dramatic Glimpses of Biblical Archaeology

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines selected finds from three archaeological periods at Tell es-Safi in Israel, confidently identified as biblical Gath, the capital of the Philistine pentapolis. The article describes selected archaeological finds from the final period of Philistine occupation of the city in the ninth century BCE, from the period of the site’s abandonment, and from the period of the Judahite town at the site in the late eighth century BCE. The discussion is accented with passages from the Hebrew Bible. Philistine Gath was destroyed by the Aramean forces of Hazael of Damascus, ca. 830 BCE, and dramatic evidence of that attack and destruction is shared. Evidence of the powerful earthquake of the mid-eighth century BCE is also related. Discoveries from the late eighth-century BCE town we call Judahite Gath are laid forth, as well as the signs of the town’s destruction by the Assyrian forces of Sennacherib in 701 BCE.