town or village

Ziklag

• Today Tell esh Sharia
• Location disputed

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Battles and sieges

1. c. 1010 BCDavid recovers all from the Amalekites who burned Ziklag 1 Sam 30:16–20
   David with four hundred men against the Amalekite raiders. The raiders are cut down from twilight to the next evening; four hundred escape on camels; every captive and all the spoil are recovered.

History

Ziklag was a town in the Negev, the dry south of Judah, and its site is disputed. The point on the map marks Tell esh-Sharia (Tel Sera'), a mound on the north bank of Nahal Gerar about 20 km north-west of Beersheba, which many scholars take for Ziklag; Eliezer Oren of Ben-Gurion University excavated it in 1972–1979. Tel Halif (Tell Khuweilifeh), north-east of Beersheba, was proposed earlier. In 2019 Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor, who excavate Khirbet a-Ra'i near Lachish, proposed their site; Aren Maeir and Israel Finkelstein objected, Finkelstein noting that the Bible places Ziklag in the Negev, not in the Shephelah.

Tell esh-Sharia has remains from the Chalcolithic period to Byzantine times. In its early Iron Age level Philistine pottery appears, but no destruction there has been tied to the Amalekite raid. At Khirbet a-Ra'i the excavators found massive buildings of the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC with Philistine pottery and, above them, a village of the early tenth century BC whose rooms were suddenly destroyed. They see in this sequence the Philistine town that was given to David, but the identification has not been generally accepted.

The Book of Joshua lists Ziklag among the southern towns of Judah and again among those of Simeon. Fleeing from Saul, David asked Achish, king of Gath, for "a place in some town in the country", and Achish gave him Ziklag, "wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day". David lived in the country of the Philistines a full year and four months and from Ziklag raided the Amalekites and other peoples of the south. While he was away with the Philistine army, the Amalekites burned the town and carried off the women and children; David pursued them, recovered everything and sent part of the spoil to the elders of Judah. At Ziklag he heard of the death of Saul, and from there he went up to Hebron. Men of Benjamin and of Manasseh came over to him at Ziklag.

After the exile, Nehemiah lists Ziklag among the places where the people of Judah lived. In the early fourth century AD Eusebius recalls that Achish gave Sikelag to David and assigns it to Judah or Simeon in the Daroma, the southern district of Palestine, but he names no village of his own day on the spot.

Scripture: Josh 15:31; Josh 19:5; 1 Sam 27:5–7; 1 Sam 27:8–9; 1 Sam 29:11; 1 Sam 30:1–3; 1 Sam 30:17–19; 1 Sam 30:26; 2 Sam 1:1–4; 2 Sam 2:1–3; 1 Chr 12:1–2; 1 Chr 12:20; Neh 11:25; Neh 11:28

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

Verses (13)

Josh 15:31

And Ziklag, and Madmannah, and Sansannah,

Josh 19:5

And Ziklag, and Beth-marcaboth, and Hazar-susah,

1 Sam 27:6

Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day: wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day.

1 Sam 30:1

And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire;

1 Sam 30:3

So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives.

1 Sam 30:14

We made an invasion upon the south of the Cherethites, and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.

1 Sam 30:26

And when David came to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the LORD;

2 Sam 1:1

Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag;

2 Sam 4:10

When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings:

1 Chr 4:30

And at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at Ziklag,

1 Chr 12:1

Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish: and they were among the mighty men, helpers of the war.

1 Chr 12:20

As he went to Ziklag, there fell to him of Manasseh, Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael, and Jozabad, and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of the thousands that were of Manasseh.

Neh 11:28

And at Ziklag, and at Mekonah, and in the villages thereof,

King James Version

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