The first place we stopped in the Shephelah was the tel of Beth Shemesh, meaning Son of Shemesh, a border town between Judah and Dan. On top of the tell we discussed many different things that happened here. For example, the two heifers with the ark of the covenant came here from the Philistine camp, Aphek. This is because the camps of the Philistines were being attacked constantly. Therefore, they put it on a cart after 70 people died because they took a look in it, and shipped it off with two heifers. It came here to Beth Shemesh and on to Kiriat Jaarim where the college is. The tel is consistent of a cistern and a couple tombs along with the many houses and a temple. To the right of where we stood was a city called Zorah where Samson was born. He then lived most of his life in the Sorek Valley where we were.
The next stop included the city of Gath in the Elah valley between Zocchal and Azekah. This is the city of very well known character Goliath. I could see that people of big stature lived there because the tel was a huge tel. At one point, David flees here with Goliath’s sword to escape from Saul. He escaped the riots against him there by acting like a mad man. Another example is Hazzel king of Aram came and captured the city. At the base of the tel he dug a moat to keep the inhabitants inside the city. One might think that it was to keep invaders out of the city but instead he wanted the people of the city to starve. An example of a moat like this can be found in Zukkor with the event written down in the Zukkor tablets. Inside the city we found an inscription with Goliath written on it. Some potsherds with evidence of his existence therefore this is where they think Goliath is buried. Down the hill from Goliath’s grave were ruins of houses or Philistine apartments. The apartments architecture consisted of a flat roof and pillars to support.
The next stop we made was at Azekah. Here was an over look on the Elah valley. We could see the chalk troph along with the place they think the battle of David and Goliath took place in 1 Samuel 17. Here we looked at the different accounts that were written on the battle. For example in 2 Samuel 21:19 it says that another man killed Goliath. Benj believes that it was a textual corruption because the words in the original language looked the same. Going into the valley of Elah, we went into a brook, maybe where David fought Goliath, and reenacted the fight. Benj took a slingshot and we practiced our aim. We learned that the people back in that day used to professionalize in the art.
We then loaded the bus again and made a quick stop at Maresha. This might be the hometown of Micah. We then went to some caves that the Israelites hid in and climbed around in the caves.
Lachish was where, in 2 Kings 18, was a tel where Sennacharib built a ramp up to the city to push his siege machines up to the wall. On that day 1850 Assyrians died. In the excavations, 100 or more arrow heads were found in consequence of that war. Two other events that happened here were the conquest of Joshua in Joshua 10 and the Babylonian conquest. Excavators found the Lachish letters that related to the conquest of Babylon. The fourth Lachish letter they found explained that the commander could not see Azaka. This letter was supposed to make it to Jerusalem but never did because right after it was written they were attacked. Historians say that the letter, in context of history and the timeline, was written right after Jeremiah wrote the book of Jeremiah based on the contents of Jeremiahs book.
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