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| ruins at Lachish, courtesy, Wikipedia |
During the
Israelite conquest of Canaan, Japhia, the King of Lachish, was listed as one of
the Five Amorite Kings that allied to repel the
invasion, according to the Book of Joshua. After a surprise attack from the
Israelites, the kings took refuge in a cave,
where they were captured and put to death. Joshua and the Israelites then took
the city after a two-day siege and exterminated the population. Afterwards, Lachish
was assigned to the Tribe of Judah. After
Israel split in two – the southern Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of
Israel – its fortifications were
built by the king of Judah, Rehoboam, son and successor of King Solomon, as is recorded
in II Chronicles 11:9.
Of the cities in ancient Judah, Lachish was second in importance only to Jerusalem. It was destroyed c. 925
BCE by Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonk I. But the city’s rebuilding began soon after
and in the first half of the 9th century BCE, under kings Asa and Jehoshaphat, Lachish’s importance was revived. It was heavily
fortified with massive walls and ramparts and a royal palace was built on a platform in the center of the city. Lachish
was foremost among several fortified cities and strongholds guarding the
valleys that lead up to Jerusalem and the interior of the country against
enemies which usually approached from the coast. According to II Chronicles
25:27, King Amaziah of Judah fled to Lachish after he
was defeated in battle by King Jehoash of
Israel, where he was captured and
executed. In 701 BCE, during the revolt of King Hezekiah against Assyria, Lachish was besieged and captured by Sennacherib despite the defenders' determined resistance. Some
scholars believe that the fall of Lachish actually occurred during a second
campaign in the area by Sennacherib c. 688 BCE. Regardless, the town
was rebuilt again in the late 7th century BCE during the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
However, the city fell to Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylonia, in his campaign
against Judah in 586 BCE. According to the prophet Jeremiah (34:7),
Lachish and Azekah were the last two
Judean cities to fall before the conquest of Jerusalem. During the period of
the Babylonian Captivity, a large residence was built on the spot where the
palace once stood. At the end of the Captivity, some exiled Jews returned to
Lachish and built a new city with fortifications. But since the time of
Alexander the Great, it was abandoned and remained so ever since.
Beginning in the 1890s, archaeologists took an interest in the ancient city. Lachish was identified by Flinders Petrie with Tell el-Hesi, an identification supported when a relevant cuneiform tablet was found there. However, other scholars and archaeologists would identify Lachish with Tel ed Duweir based mostly on the writings of Eusebius, the royal reliefs of Sennacherib, the site excavations, and an ostracon found there. Future expeditions, mainly British, made additional discoveries at both sites. At the same time, the region around Lachish began to be developed beginning in 1939 and throughout the 40s in spite of British Mandate law forbidding Jewish settlement in the area. In the western part of the region for instance, outpost settlements were established including Negbah and Gevaram and after Israeli independence in 1948, a network of 31 moshavim and kibbutzim came into being there. Development in the central and eastern parts, however, was held up by lack of water. With the construction of the Yarkon-Negev conduit in 1954, the Lachish Development Project came into being and became the prototype of regional planning for Israel and also for other developing countries. Most of the 23 villages erected in the region since 1954 were moshavim (including Moshav Lachish founded in 1955), but there were also a few kibbutzim and administered farms. The three rural centers were Nehorah, Even Shemu'el, and Vardon (Menuḥah); for the older village clusters, no such centers were set up, and they were directly dependent on the next regional town. Kiryat Gat functioned as the Lachish region's urban center, but a number of villages in the western part were more closely linked to Ashkelon and Kiryat Malakhi which are within easier reach. In the mid-60s, an Israeli archaeological expedition, directed by Yohanan Aharoni, took place on behalf of Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. Since 1973, excavations have continued at the site almost without interruption. And the debate between supporters of Tell el Hesi and Tel ed Duweir continues.
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