Bible Synapse
Gezer
Site · c. 1650–950 BC · Before the kings · also called Tel Gezer, Gezer gate, Gezer high place
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 1650–950 BC (the high place (Middle Bronze Age) and the six-chambered gate (10th century BC))
- Found
- Tel Gezer, Shephelah, Israel, 1902. Identified by Charles Clermont-Ganneau in 1871. Excavated by R. A. S. Macalister for the Palestine Exploration Fund (1902–1905 and 1907–1909), by a team under G. E. Wright, W. G. Dever and J. D. Seger (1964–1974), and by the Tel Gezer Excavation and Publication Project (2006–2017).
- Now
- At the site (Tel Gezer National Park), Israel
- Passages
- Joshua 10:33, Joshua 16:10, Judges 1:29, 1 Kings 9:15–17
What it is
A large mound in the foothills where the coast road met the road up to Jerusalem. Its Middle Bronze Age city had strong walls and a high place where ten large stones stand in a line, the biggest about 3 metres tall. In the Late Bronze Age its kings wrote to the pharaoh in the Amarna letters, and Merneptah boasts of seizing it. In the Iron Age a six-chambered gate was built, of the same plan as gates at Megiddo and Hazor.
How it connects to the Bible
Joshua names a “king of Gezer” among Israel’s enemies, and Joshua 16:10 and Judges 1:29 say the Canaanites of Gezer were not driven out. 1 Kings 9:15–17 says a pharaoh burned Gezer and gave it to his daughter, Solomon’s wife, and that Solomon rebuilt it. Yigael Yadin identified the six-chambered gate as Solomon’s work, and a 2023 radiocarbon study dates the city it belongs to the 10th century BC.
What scholars debate
Whether the gate is Solomon’s work is debated: some scholars date it to the 9th century BC, and a 10th-century date does not by itself show who built it. Which pharaoh 1 Kings 9:16 means is uncertain.