Where was Gath, the city of Goliath?

Question

Accepted Answer

Gath is Tell es-Safi, a high mound in Israel where the valley of Elah opens onto the coastal plain, about 38 km west of Jerusalem in a straight line; the map point stands on it. It lay about 9 km south of Ekron and some 15 km down the valley from the place where David met Goliath. The identification was proposed in the nineteenth century; Tel Erani near Kiryat Gat, a town named after Gath, was also tried, but Tell es-Safi is now widely accepted because it fits the biblical geography and because it was the largest Philistine city of the tenth and ninth centuries BC. Gath was one of the five Philistine cities, and the Bible ties it above all to David. Goliath was “of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span”, and after his fall the Philistines fled “even unto Gath, and unto Ekron”. Fleeing from Saul, David “went to Achish the king of Gath” and feigned madness at his gate; later he served Achish with six hundred men and received Ziklag from him. When Saul and Jonathan fell, David lamented: “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice.” Ittai the Gittite and his men from Gath stood by David when Absalom rebelled. Excavations led by Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University since 1996 have found a siege trench dug round the city in the late ninth century BC and a thick layer of destruction, which matches the report that “Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath, and took it”. Gath never regained its size. Amos holds it up as a warning, “go down to Gath of the Philistines”, and the later prophets list the Philistine cities without it. A potsherd of about the tenth century from the site bears two names, alwt and wlt, that recall the name Goliath without referring to him. The cities of the Philistines as a group are the subject of a separate question.