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Beth-shemesh

• Today Tel Bet Shemesh

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Battles and sieges

1. c. 790 BCJehoash of Israel defeats Amaziah at Beth-shemesh 2 Kgs 14:11–14
   Jehoash of Israel against Amaziah of Judah. Judah flees, Amaziah is taken, and Jehoash breaks down four hundred cubits of Jerusalem's wall and takes the Temple's gold.

History

Beth-shemesh, "house of the sun", is Tel Beth-Shemesh, a low mound in the Sorek valley about 24 km west of Jerusalem, where the hills of Judah come down to the lowland. The nearby ruin of 'Ain Shems kept the old name, and nineteenth-century explorers identified the site from it. The Palestine Exploration Fund dug here from 1911, Elihu Grant of Haverford College from 1928 to 1933, and Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman from 1990. A walled town stood here in the Middle Bronze Age, and in the Late Bronze Age it was a prosperous Canaanite city.

In the Book of Joshua Beth-shemesh lies on the border of Judah and is given with its suburbs to the priests, the children of Aaron. When the Philistines sent back the ark of the LORD on a new cart, two milch kine "took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh". The people were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley and rejoiced to see it; the cart stopped by a great stone in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, the Levites set the ark on the stone, and the kine were offered as a burnt offering. Then the LORD smote the men of Beth-shemesh "because they had looked into the ark" (Josephus counts seventy dead), and they sent to Kiriath-jearim to fetch it away.

Under Solomon the town belonged to the district of the son of Dekar. At Beth-shemesh Jehoash king of Israel defeated Amaziah king of Judah, took him captive and went on to break down the wall of Jerusalem. The excavators date a destruction of the Judahite town to about 790 BC and tie it to this battle; an archaeomagnetic study of 2022 favoured their date over a later one. In the days of Ahaz the Philistines took Beth-shemesh. The Iron Age town had a large underground water reservoir. According to the excavators, the town was destroyed in the Assyrian campaign of 701 BC; it was settled again in the seventh century, but it never regained its former importance.

In the early fourth century Eusebius knew Bethsames as a place ten miles from Eleutheropolis on the way to Nicopolis. In the Byzantine period a monastery stood near the mound.

Scripture: Josh 15:10; Josh 21:13–16; 1 Sam 6:7–21; 1 Kgs 4:9; 2 Kgs 14:11–13; 2 Chr 25:21–23; 2 Chr 28:18

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (17)

Josh 15:10

And the border compassed from Baalah westward unto mount Seir, and passed along unto the side of mount Jearim, which is Chesalon, on the north side, and went down to Beth-shemesh, and passed on to Timnah:

Josh 21:16

And Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs; nine cities out of those two tribes.

1 Sam 6:9

And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.

1 Sam 6:12

And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.

1 Sam 6:13

And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.

1 Sam 6:14

And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the LORD.

1 Sam 6:15

And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the LORD.

1 Sam 6:18

And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the LORD: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Beth-shemite.

1 Sam 6:19

And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.

1 Sam 6:20

And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? and to whom shall he go up from us?

1 Kgs 4:9

The son of Dekar, in Makaz, and in Shaalbim, and Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan:

2 Kgs 14:11

But Amaziah would not hear. Therefore Jehoash king of Israel went up; and he and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the face at Beth-shemesh, which belongeth to Judah.

2 Kgs 14:13

And Jehoash king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash the son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, four hundred cubits.

1 Chr 6:59

And Ashan with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs:

2 Chr 25:21

So Joash the king of Israel went up; and they saw one another in the face, both he and Amaziah king of Judah, at Beth-shemesh, which belongeth to Judah.

2 Chr 25:23

And Joash the king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits.

2 Chr 28:18

The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the low country, and of the south of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, and Ajalon, and Gederoth, and Shocho with the villages thereof, and Timnah with the villages thereof, Gimzo also and the villages thereof: and they dwelt there.

King James Version

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