Bible Synapse
Tel Lachish
Site · 701 BC and 588/586 BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called Lachish, Tell ed-Duweir
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- 701 BC and 588/586 BC (the two destructions of Judahite Lachish)
- Found
- Tel Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir), Israel. Excavated by J. L. Starkey’s British expedition in the 1930s, by Yohanan Aharoni in 1966 and 1968, by David Ussishkin for Tel Aviv University from 1973 to 1994, and by later teams. The site is now a national park.
- Now
- At the site (Tel Lachish National Park)
- Passages
- 2 Kings 18:14, 2 Kings 18:17, 2 Chronicles 32:9, Jeremiah 34:7, Micah 1:13
What it is
A large mound in the Shephelah, south-west of Jerusalem: in the period of the kings, the most important city of Judah after the capital. The city of Level III, with a huge palace-fort and the most massive Israelite-period city gate known in the land, was burnt and razed; hundreds of arrowheads lay in its ruins, and beside it survives the only Assyrian siege ramp yet found. The rebuilt city of Level II was destroyed by fire in 588/586 BC, and the Lachish letters were found in its ruins.
How it connects to the Bible
Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah tell how Sennacherib besieged Lachish in 701 BC and sent his officers from there to Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:14, 17; 2 Chronicles 32:9). More than a century later Jeremiah names the last strongholds holding out against Babylon: “against Lachish, and against Azekah” (Jeremiah 34:7). Ussishkin’s excavations showed that Level III is the city Sennacherib destroyed, a dating now widely accepted.