Shephelah

At Lachish in the Shephelah, ostraca found in the ruins of the last city gate offer a poignant glimpse of the last moments of the independence of Judah as the signal fires from the neighboring towns are snuffed out, one by one.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

The entire pottery chronology of the last phase of the history of Judah after the fall of Israel is therefore based on one site, Lachish in the Shephelah, which twice provides this combination of an unambiguous archaeological destruction layer with rich finds and a reliable historical source.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

In the Deuteronomistic History, they created a single epic of the conquest of Canaan, with the scenes of the fiercest battles—in the Jordan valley,the area of Bethel, the Shephelah foothills, and the centers of former Israelite and lately Assyrian administration in the north—precisely where their new conquest of Canaan would have to be waged.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

At that time the kingdom was divided into twelve districts, which encompassed the area from the Beersheba valley in the south to the plateau of Benjamin in the north, including the eastern Shephelah.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

In the west, the fact that Lachish was re-fortified and that it again served as a major Judahite fort is probably the best evidence that Josiah continued to control the areas of the Shephelah revived by his grandfather Manasseh.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

It extends from the Beersheba valley to the plateau of Bethel north of Jerusalem, and from the Dead Sea and Jordan valley to the upper Shephelah.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

The city of Lachish in the Shephelah was surrounded by a formidable fortification system consisting of a sloping stone revetment halfway down the slope of the mound and a massive brick wall at its crest.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

So too, the story of the conquest of the Shephelah parallels the renewed Judahite expansion into this very important and fertile region.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

Adonizedek, the king of Jerusalem, quickly forged a military alliance with the king of Hebron in the southern highlands and the kings of Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon in the Shephelah foothills to the west.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001

Farther south, at the imposing mound of Tell ed-Duweir in the Shephelah, a site identified with the famous biblical city of Lachish Joshua10:31–32, a British expedition in the1930s uncovered remains of yet another great Late Bronze Age city destroyed in a conflagration.

The Bible Unearthed Israel Finkelstein 2001