Tel Lachish: The Canaanite City Taken by Joshua

Lachish in the Book of Joshua

Japhia, king of Lachish, and the coalition of five kings

After Joshua makes a treaty with the Gibeonites, Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, calls on four southern kings to punish Gibeon. The king of Lachish is named Japhia.

"Wherefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying:"

Joshua 10:3 (JPS 1917)

וַיִּשְׁלַח אֲדֹנִי־צֶדֶק מֶלֶךְ יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֶל־הוֹהָם מֶלֶךְ־חֶבְרוֹן וְאֶל־פִּרְאָם מֶלֶךְ־יַרְמוּת וְאֶל־יָפִיעַ מֶלֶךְ־לָכִישׁ וְאֶל־דְּבִיר מֶלֶךְ־עֶגְלוֹן לֵאמֹר

יהושע י, ג

The five armies besiege Gibeon; Joshua routs them and pursues them by the ascent of Beth-horon as far as Azekah and Makkedah (Joshua 10:10). The five kings hide in a cave at Makkedah, where they are captured and put to death (Joshua 10:16-27).

Lachish taken "on the second day"

The narrative then moves quickly through a southern campaign: Makkedah, Libnah, then Lachish, Eglon, Hebron and Debir. Lachish is the only city in this account whose capture is explicitly placed "on the second day".

"And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel with him, unto Lachish, and encamped against it, and fought against it. And the LORD delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, and he took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein, according to all that he had done to Libnah."

Joshua 10:31-32 (JPS 1917)

וַיַּעֲבֹר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ וְכָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל עִמּוֹ מִלִּבְנָה לָכִישָׁה וַיִּחַן עָלֶיהָ וַיִּלָּחֶם בָּהּ. וַיִּתֵּן יְהוָה אֶת־לָכִישׁ בְּיַד יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּלְכְּדָהּ בַּיּוֹם הַשֵּׁנִי וַיַּכֶּהָ לְפִי־חֶרֶב וְאֶת־כָּל־הַנֶּפֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר־בָּהּ כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה לְלִבְנָה

יהושע י, לא-לב

The next verse adds that Horam, king of Gezer, came up to help Lachish and was defeated (Joshua 10:33). The king of Lachish then appears in the list of defeated kings (Joshua 12:11), and the city is allotted to the tribe of Judah, in the Shephelah (Joshua 15:39).

Lachish, a Late Bronze Age Canaanite city

A mound shaped in the Middle Bronze Age

The site's outline, with its steep slopes and sharp corners, goes back to the Middle Bronze Age (17th–16th century BCE). A huge bank of earth and stones, a glacis, then surrounded the fortified city. That city was destroyed in the mid-16th century BCE; Lachish slowly revived in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 BCE) and became one of the most prosperous cities of southern Canaan.

A city-state under Egyptian rule

In the 14th century BCE, the Amarna letters, a diplomatic correspondence in Akkadian found in Egypt, mention Lachish several times. Rulers of the city, among them Zimreddi (or Zimrida) and Shipti-Baal, write to Pharaoh to assure him of their loyalty. Abdi-Heba, king of Jerusalem, reports for his part that Zimreddi was killed by his own servants. These tablets show a land split into small rival principalities, all vassals of Egypt: the same political background that the coalition of Joshua 10, with its five kings of neighbouring cities, assumes.

The Fosse Temple

In the 1930s the British expedition uncovered, at the north-western foot of the mound, a sanctuary built in the old moat of the Middle Bronze Age fortifications: the Fosse Temple. Enlarged in three phases between the 15th and 13th centuries BCE, it yielded hundreds of vessels, jewellery and offerings, as well as a jug bearing a short inscription in early alphabetic script. It was destroyed by fire around the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 12th century BCE, together with the Level VII city.

The temples of the upper city (Level VI)

The last Canaanite city, known as Level VI, was large, densely populated and apparently unwalled. On the summit, David Ussishkin's team excavated a temple whose architecture shows strong Egyptian influence. In 2016–2017 the Fourth Expedition found a second 12th-century BCE sanctuary in the north-eastern corner of the mound: two standing stones in the holy of holies, bronze cauldrons, jewellery, scarabs and two bronze "smiting god" figurines with a raised arm, often identified with Baal or Resheph.

• IdentificationTell ed-Duweir = Lachish, proposed in the 1920s and confirmed by the Lachish letters; very broad consensus
• Late Bronze AgeFosse Temple (15th–13th c.), Levels VII and VI, temples of the upper city
• TextsAmarna letters (14th c.), Egyptian hieratic inscriptions on bowls, early alphabetic inscriptions
• Visible todayMostly the city of Judah (9th–6th c. BCE): gate, palace-fort, siege ramp

The end of Canaanite Lachish and the Joshua question

Two successive destructions

• c. 1200 BCE — The Fosse Temple burns; end of the Level VII city (date debated: late 13th or early 12th century).
• 12th c. BCE — The Level VI city, still within Egypt's orbit: a bronze plaque bears the cartouche of Ramesses III.
• c. 1150–1130 BCE — The Level VI city is destroyed by a violent fire and then lies in ruins for about two centuries.

A chronological gap to face honestly

The best-documented destruction, that of Level VI, took place after 1200 BCE, in the middle or second half of the 12th century. It is later than both dates usually proposed for Joshua: around 1400 BCE according to the chronology derived from 1 Kings 6:1, or the 13th century according to the "low" chronology. Even the end of Level VII, around 1200, cannot be attributed to any particular group: no inscription or weapon identifies the attackers. Scholars point to conflicts between Canaanite cities, Egypt's withdrawal, the "Sea Peoples" or internal unrest.

A century of excavations at Tel Lachish

• 1932–1938 — British expedition led by James Leslie Starkey, with Olga Tufnell and Gerald Lankester Harding: Fosse Temple, city gate, Lachish letters. Starkey was murdered in January 1938; Olga Tufnell published the results until the late 1950s.
• 1966 and 1968 — Yohanan Aharoni, for the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University: the so-called "Solar Shrine" of the Persian or Hellenistic period and earlier levels.
• 1973–1994 — David Ussishkin (Tel Aviv University and the Israel Exploration Society): full stratigraphy, the Level VI temple, the Assyrian siege ramp, the city gate.
• 2013–2017 — Fourth Expedition, directed by Yosef Garfinkel (Hebrew University), Michael G. Hasel and Martin G. Klingbeil (Southern Adventist University): Judahite fortifications and the north-eastern Canaanite temple.
• Since 2017 — Austrian-Israeli Expedition (Austrian Academy of Sciences and Hebrew University), co-directed by Felix Höflmayer and Katharina Streit: Middle and Late Bronze Age levels, a sherd inscribed in early alphabetic script from the 15th century BCE, an Egyptian hieratic ostracon.

After Joshua: the city of Judah and the siege of 701

What visitors notice first at Tel Lachish belongs to another era, covered in our page on Judges and Kings. Refounded in the Iron Age, Lachish became Judah's main stronghold after Jerusalem, with a double wall, a large gate and a palace-fort built on a podium.

Sennacherib at Lachish (701 BCE)

During Hezekiah's revolt against Assyria, Sennacherib besieged and took Lachish; it was to Lachish that Hezekiah sent him his submission (2 Kings 18:14). At the south-western corner of the mound lies the Assyrian siege ramp, a mass of stones piled against the slope and, according to the Parks Authority, the only Assyrian siege ramp known in the Near East. The defenders answered it with a counter-ramp inside the walls.

Sennacherib had the assault carved on the walls of a room in his palace at Nineveh. These Lachish reliefs, now in the British Museum in London, show battering rams, archers and the deportation of the inhabitants.

The Lachish letters (c. 588–586 BCE)

In the gate burned by the Babylonians, Starkey found ostraca in 1935: letters written in ink on potsherds. Letter 4 ends with "we cannot see Azekah", an echo of Jeremiah 34:7, where Lachish and Azekah are the last fortified cities of Judah.

Visiting Tel Lachish National Park

The site is a national park run by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. A visitor centre screens an introductory film; you then explore the mound on your own along marked paths with recent signage.

The route

• The city gate and the access ramp: the city of Judah (Iron Age), where the Lachish letters were found.
• The podium of the palace-fort on the summit, with views over the Shephelah.
• The Assyrian siege ramp at the south-western corner, and a deep well.
• The Late Bronze Age: the Canaanite temples have been excavated, but they are mainly explained on the signs; do not expect a restored Canaanite temple.