town or village

Gezer

• Today Tel Gezer

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History

Gezer stands on a ridge at the edge of the Shephelah, where the road from Jerusalem down the valley of Aijalon meets the coastal highway. People first lived here in caves in the fourth millennium BC. In the Middle Bronze Age Gezer became a large walled city, with a row of tall standing stones that its first excavator called the High Place. In the Amarna letters of the fourteenth century BC its kings, among them Milkilu and Yapahu, write to Pharaoh, and late in the thirteenth century BC Pharaoh Merneptah boasted on his victory stela that Gezer had been seized.

Joshua defeated Horam, king of Gezer, who came to help Lachish, but Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, and they paid tribute. The town was later given to the Levites. 1 Kings tells that a pharaoh took Gezer, burned it and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife, and that Solomon rebuilt it. Its six-chambered gate, like those of Megiddo and Hazor, is dated by some to Solomon's tenth century and by others later. A small limestone tablet listing the months of the farming year, the Gezer Calendar, was found here and is commonly dated to the tenth century BC.

In the Hellenistic age the town, then called Gazara, was a Seleucid stronghold. About 142 BC Simon the Maccabee took it, put out its people, settled there men who kept the law, fortified it and made it the seat of his son John, captain of the army. Inscriptions cut in the rocks around the mound read "boundary of Gezer" in Hebrew letters and "of Alkios" in Greek; they date from the Hasmonean or the Herodian period and confirm the site's identity.

In Roman times Gezer shrank to a village. Eusebius calls it Gazara, a village four miles north of Nicopolis, the former Emmaus, and in Byzantine times the old site was only thinly inhabited.

Scripture: Josh 10:33; Josh 16:10; Judg 1:29; Josh 21:21; 1 Kgs 9:15–17

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

Verses (14)

Josh 10:33

Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish; and Joshua smote him and his people, until he had left him none remaining.

Josh 12:12

The king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one;

Josh 16:3

And goeth down westward to the coast of Japhleti, unto the coast of Beth-horon the nether, and to Gezer: and the goings out thereof are at the sea.

Josh 16:10

And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.

Josh 21:21

For they gave them Shechem with her suburbs in mount Ephraim, to be a city of refuge for the slayer; and Gezer with her suburbs,

Judg 1:29

Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

2 Sam 5:25

And David did so, as the LORD had commanded him; and smote the Philistines from Geba until thou come to Gazer.

1 Kgs 9:15

And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the LORD, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

1 Kgs 9:16

For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

1 Kgs 9:17

And Solomon built Gezer, and Beth-horon the nether,

1 Chr 6:67

And they gave unto them, of the cities of refuge, Shechem in mount Ephraim with her suburbs; they gave also Gezer with her suburbs,

1 Chr 7:28

And their possessions and habitations were, Beth-el and the towns thereof, and eastward Naaran, and westward Gezer, with the towns thereof; Shechem also and the towns thereof, unto Gaza and the towns thereof:

1 Chr 14:16

David therefore did as God commanded him: and they smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon even to Gazer.

1 Chr 20:4

And it came to pass after this, that there arose war at Gezer with the Philistines; at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Sippai, that was of the children of the giant: and they were subdued.

King James Version