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Lachish

• Today Tell ed Duweir

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Battles and sieges

1. c. 1406 BCJoshua takes Lachish Josh 10:31–33
   Israel under Joshua against Lachish, and Horam king of Gezer who comes to help it. Lachish is taken on the second day and its people put to the sword.
2. 701 BCSennacherib takes Lachish 2 Kgs 18:13–14
   Sennacherib of Assyria, with his camp before Lachish, against the fortified cities of Judah. The fortified cities are taken; from Lachish Sennacherib receives Hezekiah's tribute and sends his army to Jerusalem.
3. c. 588 BCNebuchadnezzar's army besieges Lachish and Azekah Jer 34:7
   The army of the king of Babylon against the last fortified cities of Judah. Lachish and Azekah are the only fortified cities of Judah still holding out.

History

Lachish lies in the Shephelah, the low hills between the Judaean highlands and the coastal plain, about 45 km southwest of Jerusalem, on the mound of Tell ed-Duweir. A large Canaanite city stood here in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Among the Amarna letters of the fourteenth century BC are letters to Pharaoh from its rulers Yabni-ilu, Zimredda and Shipti-Baal. The Late Bronze city was burned in the twelfth century BC, and for a long time afterwards the mound was only thinly settled.

Joshua took Lachish, whose king Japhia had joined the league against Gibeon. Rehoboam fortified it, and King Amaziah fled there from a conspiracy in Jerusalem and was killed there. Lachish became the strongest city of Judah after Jerusalem. In 701 BC Sennacherib of Assyria besieged it, and from Lachish he sent his officers to Hezekiah in Jerusalem. At Nineveh he lined a room of his palace with reliefs of the siege, with a caption saying that the booty of Lachish passed before him. Excavators found the city burned at that time and the Assyrian siege ramp, the only one yet found.

When Nebuchadnezzar's army came, Lachish and Azekah were the last fortified cities of Judah left besides Jerusalem. The Lachish letters, ink-written potsherds, most of them found in 1935, come from those days: in one an officer writes that they are watching for the fire signals of Lachish, because they cannot see Azekah. The Babylonians took and burned the city in 587 or 586 BC.

After the exile Jews settled again at Lachish and its fields, as Nehemiah records. In the Persian period a large residence stood on the mound; a small temple there, the so-called Solar Shrine, is dated by some to the Persian and by others to the Hellenistic period. Afterwards the mound was abandoned. In Eusebius' day there was a village of Lachish seven miles from Eleutheropolis toward the Daroma, the south country.

Scripture: Josh 10:3–5; Josh 10:31–32; 2 Chr 11:5–9; 2 Kgs 14:19; 2 Kgs 18:13–17; 2 Kgs 19:8; Jer 34:7; Neh 11:30

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

Verses (22)

Josh 10:3

Wherefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying,

Josh 10:5

Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it.

Josh 10:23

And they did so, and brought forth those five kings unto him out of the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.

Josh 10:31

And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel with him, unto Lachish, and encamped against it, and fought against it:

Josh 10:32

And the LORD delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein, according to all that he had done to Libnah.

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 10:34

And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and all Israel with him; and they encamped against it, and fought against it:

Josh 10:35

And they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.

Josh 12:11

The king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one;

Josh 15:39

Lachish, and Bozkath, and Eglon,

2 Kgs 14:19

Now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem: and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish, and slew him there.

2 Kgs 18:14

And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

2 Kgs 18:17

And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

2 Kgs 19:8

So Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

2 Chr 11:9

And Adoraim, and Lachish, and Azekah,

2 Chr 25:27

Now after the time that Amaziah did turn away from following the LORD they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem; and he fled to Lachish: but they sent to Lachish after him, and slew him there.

2 Chr 32:9

After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, (but he himself laid siege against Lachish, and all his power with him,) unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying,

Neh 11:30

Zanoah, Adullam, and in their villages, at Lachish, and the fields thereof, at Azekah, and in the villages thereof. And they dwelt from Beer-sheba unto the valley of Hinnom.

Isa 36:2

And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field.

Isa 37:8

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

Jer 34:7

When the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah: for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah.

Mic 1:13

O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

King James Version

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