Comments on BiblePlaces Blog: The Identity of Khirbet Qeiyafa

>Remember that the competition was framed as a "co...

2008-10-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

>Remember that the competition was framed as a "contest of champions" and with Goliath's defeat, the Philistines should have surrendered.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I suspect there were very few times this kind of contest was agreed to, but even fewer when the losing side actually gave up. There were no umpires back then.

I suspect it was a conbination of things that caused them to run.

1. As you said, seeing the guy you hoped to follow behind in the battle line lose his head was a major factor.

2. There was always the "whose god is stronger" element to battle, and if a kid could kill Goliath, then maybe his God was at least "the god of this place".

3. It must have also been a shock to realize that the iron armour they relied on to protect them could be overcome simply with a sling and a rock. David was probably not the only slinger in the Israelite army and they must have felt more vunerable after watching Goliath go down with a single stone.

dfrese - with regard to your last point, that it m...

2008-10-26T16:54:00.000-05:00

dfrese - with regard to your last point, that it makes no sense for the Philistines to flee a fortified position, a couple of thoughts. 1) Remember that the competition was framed as a "contest of champions" and with Goliath's defeat, the Philistines should have surrendered (v. 9). Maybe at that point, every man was concerned only for himself and to get as far away from potential servitude in Israel as possible. 2) If the Philistines had previously taken Ephes-dammim from Israel, then David's victory may have at least suggested that Israel get the fortress back (or that the Israelites would be strong enough to take it back). Ultimately, I'm not sure that rational thought was necessarily fully operative after seeing the head of their champion uplifted.

Sorry about the acronym. I suppose if I watched more TV commercials I would be sensitive to things like that.

Okay, the fancy Hebrew stuff didn't work right.Tha...

2008-10-24T20:19:00.000-05:00

Okay, the fancy Hebrew stuff didn't work right.

That should be חנה followed by ב, not the other way around.

I did a quick check in Accordance and it appears t...

2008-10-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

I did a quick check in Accordance and it appears that ב + חנה does not mean "besiege," but to "camp at/in."

Josh 10:31 talks of besieging and uses the preposition על.

This is fun stuff to think through; I’ve never act...

2008-10-24T01:01:00.000-05:00

This is fun stuff to think through; I’ve never actually thought of the exact objective of the Philistine campaign (i.e., what town they were trying to take) – distracted by the David/Goliath drama, I suppose. Another couple of comments/responses:

“If KQ was a fort at the time of David and Goliath, it makes good sense that the army would camp there, as 1) they couldn't fit inside a small fort and wouldn't need the protection of the walls anyway and 2) their "camp" has a name (ED).”

1) Maybe they didn’t need to camp outside the walls. On the size of KQ: the Wikipedia entry lists the upper city as about 3 hectares, which looks consistent with the walls visible on Google maps. That’s about two and a half football fields. Probably enough space for a decent sized army contingent. And as Benj points out, it’s possible that they “camped” in a town (thanks Benj for the reference - with an exotic construct-to-finite-verb construction, no less). So it’s possible that the Philistines camped in or against Ephes Dammim. (BTW, I think “ED” is an unfortunate acronym. You might want to avoid it.)

2) You’re right that the name Ephes Dammim is important. If there are no other settlements on the hillsides between Socoh and Azekah, then you’re probably right in your site identification.

On the reference to Socoh in 1 Sam 17:1: “The fact that Philistines were at an Israelite city makes the conflict clear from the start.”

If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then I agree that this is possible. =) After thinking a bit more about it, I think the reference to “Socoh which belonged to Judah” would support a reconstruction wherein the Philistines are “camped” in/at Ephes Dammim, but they “gathered” – i.e., they sortied – to Socoh to try and take it from Judah. (Is this what you meant above? Is this the normal interpretation of this passage? I haven’t looked at any commentaries or anything, so I don’t know) If this *isn’t* what the text means, then that reference to Socoh in this verse is a bit awkward (and why I questioned it before).

So if this last point swings the ambiguity of the Ephes Dammim reference (that the Philistines camped either “in” or “against” it) towards your interpretation (Todd), then I guess that just leaves one point of awkwardness (for me): that the Philistines were so unnerved when Goliath was killed that they abandoned their perfectly defensible fortress with massive, megalithic walls. Hysteria?

Great post Todd, love the historical geography. J...

2008-10-23T10:02:00.000-05:00

Great post Todd, love the historical geography. Just a few things to note. First it seems that the Hebrew word for camp or encampments refers to impermanence and not a specific type of settlement (ie. tent, fort, whatever), so this would indicate that the Philistines were there temporarily. This definitely allows for a possible Israelite fort (built as they expanded through the Elah valley) that was taken over by the Philistines as they attempted to gain access to the hill country by way of the route through Bethlehem.

Second I believe this id makes sense as Saul and the Israelites would have not ventured out of the hill country and across the Chalk Moat (acting as a geographical border between shephelah and hill country) to set up camp because that would have exposed them in case of retreat. So the Philistines would have moved from Asekah to Ephes-Dammim to Socoh, in order to confront the Israelites who would have been camped at the edge of the hills (perhaps where a moshav is located today). Oh and I have an article being published in the upcoming NEASB on the date of the Judah City List (Joshua 15) and the historical geography of the Chalk Moat.

Benj - Pas Dammim is in the Lucianic manuscripts o...

2008-10-22T07:34:00.000-05:00

Benj - Pas Dammim is in the Lucianic manuscripts of the LXX.

Todd,Great article. It's well thought out.I don't ...

2008-10-22T03:35:00.000-05:00

Todd,
Great article. It's well thought out.

I don't see the reference to “pas dammim” in the LXX of 2 Sam 23:9. I only glanced at the LXX in Bible Works (which is Rahlf’s edition with no apparatus, and not the Goettingen edition), so perhaps it appears in one of the recensions (i.e. Aq., Symm, Theod)?

Danny, I’m not sure the verb “to camp” should give us too much trouble. Yes, it often means “to camp” in the nomadic sense, but when we consider that Isa 29:1 says that Ariel was the city (Heb. kiriyah) that David “camped” in, then I think it would be possible for the writer to say that the Philistines “camped, took up residence, lodged, etc.” in the fortified city of Ephes Dammim (assuming, of course, that Todd is correct in identifying it with Qeiyafa).

Benj F.

I don't have anything to add to this tremendously ...

2008-10-21T23:30:00.000-05:00

I don't have anything to add to this tremendously well-written article, Todd (& the photos are spectacular of course), but just wanted to thank you for emphasizing the importance of the excavation there. You really have a fantastic way of highlighting what's important about all these Bible places. It never occurred to me before now, but you sure would make a terrific senior editor for BAR some day.

Almost certainly there are other unidentified site...

2008-10-21T22:06:00.000-05:00

Almost certainly there are other unidentified sites in the area; the Shephelah is full of settlements. I'd have to check the Shephelah survey (and I don't have time this month).

An important issue that you raise concerns the size of KQ. Based on photographs, my assumption has been that the fortified area was rather small (thus a "fort" rather than a walled city). According to the excavator's report last year, the site is 35 acres, which is larger than Lachish! But I'm not sure how much of that was fortified (or even occupied in the 10th century). That report is here:
http://www.israntique.org.il/article_Item_eng.asp?sec_id=17&subj_id=487&id=1332&module_id=#as

If KQ was a fort at the time of David and Goliath, it makes good sense that the army would camp there, as 1) they couldn't fit inside a small fort and wouldn't need the protection of the walls anyway and 2) their "camp" has a name (ED).

It's possible that the Philistines were trying to take ED at the time of the battle of David and Goliath, but I think this would be clearer in the text if so.

As for determining ethnicity, one problem could be if the fortress was held by both forces at different times (and thus pottery from both peoples was found there).

I think the reference to Socoh in Judah is simply the biblical (Israelite) writer saying that this city belonged to Judah. The fact that Philistines were at an Israelite city makes the conflict clear from the start.

If KQ was an Israelite stronghold at the time of the battle of David and Goliath, then KQ is not ED. Rather one should look for ED on the other side of the valley. At the moment I can't think of any compelling evidence against this possibility, except that we have one known fortified site between Azekah and Socoh and one given place name in the Bible.

One other note: the IAA report linked to above mentions a LMLK seal (8th c.). Reports on the Elah Fortress website mention that the site was inhabited only in the early 10th century and not later in the Iron Age. I'm not sure how that fits in, unless Hezekiah's men later "camped" there. Of course with preliminary reports such as are available, everything is subject to change with further analysis in the lab and excavations on the field.

Darn you Bolen, now you've got me wanting to buy S...

2008-10-21T22:02:00.000-05:00

Darn you Bolen, now you've got me wanting to buy Sacred Bridge.

Socoh seems like a better spot for the Israelite camp to me. While it is one of the smaller hills, it is highly defensible, with no gentle slops to attack up. It also gives them an escape route to the east if over run. I know that access to water would have been a problem, but it would have been on any hill.

Until I thought about that, I wondered why anyone would pick this smaller, lower hill to camp on. Even men with iron weapons would take a major beating trying to attack up that slope. This could be why the seemingly superior Philistine army didn't just end things with a frontal assault.

Guess we just wait until the ostracon is released.

Ah, and something else: if Ephes Dammim is Qeiyafa...

2008-10-21T21:32:00.000-05:00

Ah, and something else: if Ephes Dammim is Qeiyafa, and the Philistines had control of the site during the David-Goliath battle (as you say), then their running straight to Philistia upon Goliath's defeat doesn't make sense - they would have retreated straight into the fortified town right behind them. The fact that they fled shows that they had no stronghold there. I think this point would also support an Israelite occupancy of ED/Qeiyafa at the time.
In any case, the pottery from Qeiyafa should show ethnicity without too much trouble. Based on the above points, I'll wager a dollar fifty it's Israelite.

Sounds reasonable.I don't suppose there are any ot...

2008-10-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

Sounds reasonable.

I don't suppose there are any other settlements in the immediate area that are unidentified?

I do see one potential problem: 1 Sam 17:1 says that the Philistines *camped* at Ephes-Dammim - which would be an odd description if they were in fact lodging at a fortified city.
I suppose it could mean that they were camped *against* Ephes-Dammim - the preposition "b" would tolerate either "camp at" or "camp against [for war]"- see Judges 9:50 for the latter. So this would mean that the town belonged to Judah at the time and the Philistines were trying to take it. If you look at it this way, Saul's troops were reinforcements for his beseiged city.

Peripheral question: why would the Philistines muster at Socoh "which belongs to Judah"?

Someone should give you a doctorate already, Todd!...

2008-10-21T17:20:00.000-05:00

Someone should give you a doctorate already, Todd! Thanks! Very interesting and rather exciting!

thanks for your analysis, todd. i've been followi...

2008-10-21T15:04:00.000-05:00

thanks for your analysis, todd. i've been following those excavations with interest. I think there's quite a bit of good work going on at the moment to find out more about the interaction between the philistines and Israel / Judah and the dynamics of the border.

Using the photos for reference:I assume your tour ...

2008-10-21T13:15:00.000-05:00

Using the photos for reference:

I assume your tour bus stopped where the first "a" of Azekah is on the top photo.

If KQ is ED, then the Israelites may have been encamped south of the valley. That would put them on the ridge next to Socoh in the second photo.

Alternately, the Israelites may have been east of KQ/ED, that is on the slopes below the "Judean hills" label, also on the second photo.

"The Israelites were encamped opposite the Philist...

2008-10-21T11:07:00.000-05:00

"The Israelites were encamped opposite the Philistines on the south side of the valley (which is the opposite of how I have always pictured it), or possibly in the hill country to the east."

Todd, I just went to Israel this summer and we went to this site. Are you saying that where David & Goliath fought was closer to Khirbet Qeiyafa away from where the tour buses drop you off? The buses dropped us off closer to Azekah.