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THE EARLY discoveries of archaeologists which so thrilled the world in the nineteenth century were mostly made outside the land of Israel, in Egypt, and in Mesopotamia (as the modern country of Iraq was then called). Here discovery after discovery provided independent confirmation of people and events spoken of in the Bible, and a flood of light was thrown on the history of those great empires hitherto known only from the Bible and such written material as had survived from the ancient world. These discoveries had their greatest impact on the Scriptural records of the time of the divided monarchy, the histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; yet they will not be covered by this article, since they are so important that they warrant separate articles.

The material for this article mainly concerns discoveries within the present-day land of Israel itself, with some mention also of discoveries from adjacent lands. These discoveries are mainly relatively recent, for much archaeological research has taken place in Israel since 1948.

Idolatry at Dan

The division of the kingdom of David and Solomon into Israel and Judah began with Jeroboam’s revolt against Rehoboam, son of Solomon. However, the people of the ten tribes would still have looked to Jerusalem as their religious capital, so Jeroboam set up his own system of worship, making two calves of gold which he placed at the northern and southern borders of his land, Dan and Beth-el.

Excavations began at Dan in 1966 and are still continuing. The remains of a massive gate were uncovered, and this is dated to the tenth century B.C., the time of Jeroboam. Here is evidence of the importance of Dan once the ten tribes had broken away from Judah and the house of David.

Another site excavated at Dan is a half-acre complex used for religious purposes. In the centre is a platform believed to have been an open-air place of worship. Scripture records that Jeroboam “Made an house of high places” (1 Kgs. 12:31), and the word translated “high places” is the Hebrew word bamah, which refers to an open-air place of worship. These high places are constantly referred to in scriptures relating to Israel’s idol worship.

The excavations at Dan have revealed traces of three successive high places. The first is dated to the time of Jeroboam I. Traces of a fierce fire which destroyed this structure have been found, and this is attributed to the invasion of Ben-hadad of Syria in the days of Baasha. 1 Kings 15:20 specifically mentions that he destroyed Dan. A new and larger structure was erected on the site, and this is attributed to Ahab. Finally a 27-foot-wide stairway to a high place measuring 60 by 62 feet was built, and this is attributed to Jeroboam II.

King after king of the northern kingdom is condemned for following in the idolatrous ways of Jeroboam I, and now there is good evidence to show that Dan continued to be an important centre of false worship throughout the history of the northern kingdom.

Reconstruction of the high place at Dan.

The kingdom of Judah was ruled by the house of David throughout its history (apart from the few years when Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, seized power), and its capital remained Jerusalem. The northern kingdom was ruled by a number of dynasties, each overthrown in turn by a bloody revolt, and various cities served their turn as capital.

The earliest capital of the northern kingdom was Shechem, where the revolt against Rehoboam began (1 Kgs. 12:1), and which Jeroboam rebuilt at the start of his reign: “Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein” (v. 25). This is in accordance with the archaeological evidence, which shows that Shechem was indeed rebuilt at this time, and was destroyed at the time of the Assyrian invasions about two hundred years later. Shechem is a well-known Biblical site, and exists today as Tell Bulatah, to the east of the modern Palestinian city of Nablus.

When the dynasty of Jeroboam was overthrown by Baasha he had his capital at a different place, Tirzah (1 Kgs. 15:33). Unlike Shechem, the site of Tirzah was unknown until de Vaux, on behalf of the French Archaeological School in Jerusalem, excavated Tell el-Farah, situated in a small fertile plain six miles northeast of Shechem, between 1946 and 1960. His discoveries fit beautifully with the Biblical account.

De Vaux discovered the remains of a city from the early period of the divided kingdom, with good quality houses lining well-marked streets in a manner befitting the capital. In the early ninth century B.C. it was brutally destroyed, and this fits the Biblical account of the destruction of Tirzah in the war between Omri and Zimri (1 Kgs. 16:17,18). There are some new buildings on top of this destruction, but the one which appears to have been intended as the biggest was abandoned half finished, with a dressed stone ready to be used left by the stonecutter. This fits the Biblical account of Omri abandoning Tirzah, half way through his reign, for Samaria (16:23,24).

The city shows signs of later rebuilding in the time of Jeroboam II when Israel was very prosperous, and the excavators noted that there were several palatial buildings relating to this period which contrasted strongly with the poor dwellings of the main populace, and contrasted too with the much more egalitarian dwellings of the early period of the divided kingdom. This is in accordance with the development of class distinctions, with the rich oppressing the poor, which is condemned so strongly by the prophets, notably Amos (3:15; 4:1; 5:11; 8:4).

It is recorded of Omri that after reigning six years he purchased a hilltop site from a certain Shemer, on which he built as his new capital the city of Samaria. The site is a commanding one, easy to defend, and with magnificent vistas towards the coastal plain and the sea, befitting the policy of Omri and his son Ahab of associating with the maritime trade of Tyre and Sidon. The archaeological evidence accords with the Biblical text in that no evidence of a city before the time of Omri was found. The excavations showed that the initial wall was almost immediately rebuilt to strengthen it. This is attributed to Ahab, who succeeded Omri six years after Omri bought the site of the city.

The citadel at Samaria is a remarkable example of fine workmanship, superior to anything found earlier. Ahab was a remarkable builder, although this receives scant mention in the Scripture text, which has other things to say of him. However, it is completely in accordance with Ahab’s dalliance with Phoenicia, which brings him such condemnation in Scripture, that the ruins of his palace show strong signs of Phoenician influence. Much carved ivory was found, which had evidently been used to decorate the inner walls of his palace. Such ivory work was Phoenician in origin, and appears extensively in the ruins of Assyrian palaces dating to this time. Scripture records that he built an “ivory house” (1 Kgs. 22:39), and it is remarkable to get such confirmation of the text.

The migration of the capital from Shechem to Tirzah to Samaria as recorded in the Scriptures is thus seen to be supported by the evidence of archaeology.

Ahab the builder

1 Kings 22:39, quoted briefly above in relation to Ahab’s ivory-decorated palace, is a summary of Ahab’s deeds, and in full it reads: “Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”. The italicised words draw attention to something that has become more and more apparent as site after site has been excavated in Israel. We have already mentioned in this article Ahab’s building work at Dan and Samaria, but much more has been discovered, showing that by worldly standards Ahab was a great king. The archaeological evidence ties in well with the brief and easily overlooked statement, “... all the cities that he built...”; it also shows that the account in 1 Kings is not of merely human origin, for such a record of Ahab’s reign would not have failed to stress his great building exploits.

The same point may be made of Ahab’s father Omri. There are but eight verses in Scripture recording his reign (1 Kgs. 16:21-28), yet the evidence of archaeology, both from Israel and outside, is that he was an important king, the founder of much of what Ahab continued. Important king though he was in worldly history, there was nothing in his reign worth giving in great detail from God’s point of view, although the brief note, “his might that he shewed” (v. 27), indicates that much more could have been said, things which archaeologists have been finding out over the last century or so.

What then of Ahab’s building exploits? At Hazor, north of the Sea of Galilee, archaeologists discovered that this Canaanite city was rebuilt by Solomon, and then rebuilt again in the time of Omri and Ahab, when the city was doubled in size. At this time an extensive square fortress was built, and a shaft nineteen metres deep was sunk through solid rock, from which a stepped tunnel twenty-five metres long leads down to the water supply.

Another well-excavated city is Megiddo, and the story is similar. The city was rebuilt by Solomon, and at the time of Omri and Ahab it was built again more magnificently. The buildings once thought to be stables built for Solomon’s horses are now thought to be store houses from the time of Ahab. The water shaft here is thirty metres deep, and the tunnel at the foot which leads to the spring is seventy metres long; and again, this work is attributed to the time of Ahab.

The tunnel at the foot of the water shaft at Megiddo, thought to be the work of Ahab.

Times of prosperity

The greatest prosperity experienced by Israel and Judah during the period of the divided monarchy occurred in the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah, as he is called in 2 Kings), who reigned over Judah from 791 to 739 B.C., and Jeroboam II, who reigned over Israel from 794 to 753 B.C. 2 Chronicles 26 speaks of Uzziah’s expansion southwards: “his name spread abroad even to the entering in of Egypt ... he built towers in the desert, and digged many wells” (vv. 8,10). Of Jeroboam II it is recorded that he expanded Israel northwards to take in Damascus and Hamath (2 Kgs. 14:25,28). In the prophets contemporary with those times, particularly Amos, there is much to indicate that Israelite society had achieved quite a level of material prosperity, or at least a minority of people had.

Archaeologists have made significant discoveries which indicate that this was indeed a time of power and prosperity. The rebuilding of the place of worship at Dan has already been mentioned. At Hazor a new residential quarter was built, but was destroyed by an earthquake, doubtless that mentioned in Zechariah 14:5 as occurring in the days of Uzziah.

At Megiddo a large grain storage silo, stone-lined and capable of holding 12,800 bushels of grain, is attributed to this period. At Samaria seventy receipts Were discovered, written on ostraca (bits of broken pottery), referring to such things as oil, barley and wine being received in Samaria from surrounding localities.

In the territory of the ancient kingdom of Judah there is evidence of an expansion of settlement into the south, the Negeb. At Ain-el-Qudeirat, now in Egypt, which is believed to be the site of ancient Kadesh-barnea, well known from the Biblical account of the wilderness journey, excavations were carried out from 1976 to 1979 when it was under Israel’s control. The remains of a large rectangular fortress, seventy-five feet long, with solid walls twelve feet thick, and three projecting towers, were discovered, and this building is attributed to the time of Uzziah, evidently one of the “towers in the desert” referred to in 2 Chronicles 26:10. At Qumran, better known as the site where the Dead Sea Sect lived, the remains of another fortified building dating to the time of Uzziah were discovered. It is also recorded of Uzziah that “He built Eloth, and restored it to Judah” (2 Chron. 26:2). Tell el-Kheleifeh, which lies at the centre of the north shore of the Gulf of Eilat (or Gulf of Aqaba), has been extensively excavated, and besides evidence of being built in the time of Solomon, there is evidence of rebuilding in the time of Jehoshaphat, and further rebuilding in the time of Uzziah. These are the three kings who are recorded in the Scriptures as having been involved in this area, from which trade was carried out by ship down the Gulf.

The Assyrian conquest

Archaeological evidence from Assyria concerning the various invasions of the land is presented in the article “Archaeology and Assyria”, elsewhere in this issue. In this section we concentrate upon the archaeological evidence from the cities of the ten-tribe kingdom about the Assyrian invasion.

In 2 Kings 15:29 it is stated that “In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria”.

At Hazor extensive traces of destruction by Assyria were found. Ahab’s fortress, referred to above, was comprehensively destroyed; every artifact found there had been smashed to pieces by the savage conquerors, and the floor was covered in ash three feet thick. Stones had been blackened by the fury of the flames, and charred fragments of beams and plastered ceilings were scattered around. Hazor well illustrates the fury of the Assyrian conquerors.

Megiddo is not mentioned by name in 2 Kings 15:29, but would clearly have been involved in Tiglath-pileser’s conquest, which left the northern kingdom with only the highlands of Samaria as its territory. The archaeological evidence is that Megiddo was taken at this time, and rebuilt by the Assyrians, for there was clearly much rebuilding at about 730 B.C., the time of Tiglath-pileser’s invasion, and the style is Assyrian. It is believed to have been an Assyrian provincial capital at this time. Another site where the archaeological evidence points to destruction at this same time is Tell es-Semaq, south of Haifa, a site which has not been identified with any Biblical locality. Beth-shan, never an important town in the northern kingdom, was destroyed at this time and not occupied again for hundreds of years.

By 720 B.C. the area of Samaria was also lost, to the Assyrian conquerors, and here also traces of destruction at this time have been found at various sites: Beth-el, Samaria, Shechem and Tirzah. It must not be forgotten also that the Assyrian “[came] up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them” (2 Kgs. 18:13), and the same picture of destruction is found in the south of the land, only Jerusalem escaping unscathed.

Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s time

Having mentioned Jerusalem we turn now to consider Jerusalem at the time of Hezekiah and the Assyrian invasion. It is in relation to this time, when Jerusalem stood alone against the Assyrian tide, and was delivered by the hand of God from conquest, that the most exciting discoveries have been made.

Jerusalem showing the original City of David (left fore), the extension to the Temple Mount under Solomon (right fore), and the later extension of the city behind.

It is recorded in 2 Chronicles 32:30 that, in response to the threatened Assyrian invasion, “Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on the west side of the city of David” (RV). The existence of a tunnel from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam has been known for hundreds of years. It was first described by an American traveller, Edward Robinson, in 1838, but its significance was not appreciated at the time due to the universally held belief that the site of ancient Jerusalem was on the Western Hill, currently still called Zion, instead of in the area immediately south of the Temple Mount. Once the site of ancient Zion had been correctly identified the full significance of the tunnel was then appreciated. Here was the actual tunnel referred to in the Scriptures. Confirmation that it was so came in 1880 with the discovery of an inscription in the tunnel giving an account of its construction written in an ancient Hebrew script.

The Hezekiah Tunnel and its inscription is one of the classic discoveries of Bible archaeology. Less well known but more significant are more recent discoveries which establish that the Jerusalem of Hezekiah’s time was much bigger than was widely thought, and that these discoveries fit exactly with what the Scriptures have all the time been saying.

When Israel took possession of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967 they found that the Jewish Quarter had largely been destroyed by the Jordanians. Plans were made to rebuild the Jewish Quarter, but the archaeologists were first given the opportunity to dig. Here they discovered the remains of ancient walls at various spots. One, which the excavators term the Broad Wall, is attributed to the time of Hezekiah. The evidence is that settlements were made to the north of the walls of the City of David in the eighth century B.C., probably to house an influx of people from the north when the Assyrians invaded. 2 Chronicles 32 records in some detail the way in which Hezekiah sought to strengthen the defences of Jerusalem against the Assyrian threat, and, as well as rebuilding the existing walls, he also “raised ... another wall without” (v. 5). Isaiah 22:10 states: “the houses have ye [the people of Jerusalem].broken down to fortify the wall”; and the excavated wall can today be seen to go through the foundations of houses.

Evidence of idolatry

The worship of idols instead of Yahweh, the one true God, was prevalent in both Israel and Judah, and led to both kingdoms coming to an end. The accounts of the reign of Josiah in particular show how prevalent idolatry was in his time, and, despite his vigorous onslaught against it, it was not eradicated, as many references in the book of Jeremiah and elsewhere show.

Excavations at the City of David produced some interesting evidence of this idolatry.

Small figures (figurines) of horses were found, some with disks apparently representing the sun fixed to their foreheads. These are thought to link with the idolatry destroyed by Josiah, who “took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun” (2 Kgs. 23:11).

Figurines of Ashtaroth, the mother goddess, were also discovered. Josiah destroyed her place of worship, situated on the east side of the Kidron Valley (2 Kgs. 23:13), but it is evident from Jeremiah 44:17 that the desire to worship “the queen of heaven” continued even beyond the fall of Jerusalem. These figurines were no doubt made as miniatures of the proper idols for people to take home with them and keep to show that they were under the supposed protection of the god or goddess.

Josiah did not just deal with idolatry at Jerusalem, he “defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba” (2 Kgs. 23:8), these places being the northern and southern limits of the kingdom of Judah at that time. Evidence of idolatry has been discovered at Beer-sheba.

The remains of a large horned altar were found, and on one stone of it was incised a writhing serpent. Here is evidence of serpent worship, as practised by the Egyptians, and it is noteworthy that Hezekiah in his reforms destroyed the brazen serpent which Moses had made in the wilderness because it had become a thing of worship (2 Kgs. 18:4).

At Arad, between Beer-sheba and the Dead Sea, a sanctuary seems to have been in existence from Solomon’s time onwards. It appears to have been a place where Yahweh was worshipped rather than false gods, but it was nevertheless contrary to the Law of Moses for such a sanctuary to exist. It is clear from Scripture that the two great periods of religious reform in Judah were the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. The archaeological evidence at Arad is that in Hezekiah’s time the altar of burnt offering and the high place of this sanctuary were covered over, leaving just a large room as a sanctuary, and that in Josiah’s time it was destroyed altogether and a wall built through it.

Discoveries at Lachish

One of the most interesting Biblical sites in Israel is Lachish, and archaeological excavations here have a number of interesting links with the Scriptures.

In the centre of the tel is a huge platform which formed the foundation for a large building, in fact one which was rebuilt to make it larger. The first building on this site is a square fort attributed to the time of Rehoboam who, according to 2 Chronicles 11:5, “built cities for defence in Judah”, cities which are listed in the verses which follow, and which include Lachish. This building was enlarged later, and made Lachish a most important city, perhaps second only to Jerusalem in Judah.

Lachish is perhaps most familiar to Bible readers as the city which Sennacherib besieged as recorded in 2 Kings 18:14,17. Extensive reliefs of this siege were discovered when Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh was excavated, but the Assyrian remains are outside the scope of this article. However, it is a remarkable thing that it is now possible to visit the British Museum and see the Lachish reliefs with their depiction of the city wall, and then visit the site of Lachish and see the remains of those same walls. At these walls were discovered hundreds of arrowheads, and the remains of a large Assyrian siege tower, similar to that depicted on the Assyrian reliefs.

To the archaeologist the most exciting discoveries relate to the time of the Babylonian invasion. According to Jeremiah 34:7, when Nebuchadnezzar invaded the land for the last time and conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, Lachish and nearby Azekah were the last cities to be taken outside Jerusalem itself. Excavations at Lachish have shown that at this time the city was destroyed in a fire so fierce that it reduced the limestone of the building to lime.

In one of the rooms of the gate a collection of letters were found, written on ostraca. These were written by governors of neighbouring cities at the time of the Babylonian invasion and vividly depict the scenes of panic as the Babylonian forces drew near. Azekah is also mentioned in these records, a remarkable confirmation of the Biblical text.

The siege of Lachish

Bible names found

It is always exciting when an excavation team discovers writing or inscriptions of some kind, and this is especially so when the name of someone mentioned in the Scriptures is found.

Several examples of this sort of thing have turned up relating to the time we are covering for this article, and we conclude this article by mentioning four.

At Tell Deir Alia, by the Jabbok River in Jordan, a wall was excavated dating to about 800 B.C. On the wall was discovered an inscription, mainly in black ink, but with some letters in red. The inscription begins: “Inscription of Balaam son of Beor, the man who was a seer of the gods”. Modern critics, who date the books of Moses much later than Moses, would use this as evidence that Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua, which all mention Balaam, were written at 800 B.C. or later. Yet the text remains an interesting link with the Bible references to Balaam, and it is more reasonable to suppose that Balaam was venerated as a prophet in this area for many hundreds of years prior to 800 B.C. than to assume that the earlier books of the Bible are not what they claim to be. The area in which Balaam operated in Numbers is about thirty miles south of Tell Deir Alia.

At Eilat a seal signet ring, of the sort that would be used by royalty, was found bearing the inscription, “Belonging to Jotham”. The building in which it was found is dated to the time of Uzziah, who was the father of King Jotham. Perhaps Jotham was sent by his father to superintend the building operations.

In Isaiah 22:15,16 we read of Shebna, a high official under Hezekiah, who is condemned as one that “heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock”. Amongst the tombs on the steep slopes of the Kidron Valley, opposite the City of David, is one of a high official described as “over the house”, exactly the title given to Shebna in Isaiah 22:15. The name of the person is unfortunately only partly readable, but the last letters are ‘yahu\ and it has been conjectured that the full name is Shebnayahu, the Shebna of the Scriptures.

In the remains of a house in the City of David destroyed by the Babylonians fifty-one clay bullae (lumps of clay used to seal a document) were found, forty-one with legible inscriptions denoting the owner of the sealed document. The documents themselves have all been destroyed. One bulla is impressed with the name Gemariah son of Shaphan, the man in whose chamber Baruch read the prophecies of Jeremiah to an assembly of the people (Jer.

36:10). As a result of this the prophecies were read before King Jehoiakim, who cut up the scroll on which they were written and burnt it in the fire. In the nineteenth century critics of the Bible attempted to destroy the Bible in a different way, by dismissing it as mere ancient myth and legend. Just as Jehoiakim’s efforts to destroy God’s Word failed, so have the efforts of the nineteenth-century critics. Archaeological evidence shows that the Bible is historical fact, not myth, and there is no excuse for not receiving its teaching as the Word of God.

Sources

The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, edited by Avraham Negev. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 1986. Originally published in Jerusalem in Hebrew.

The Archaeology of the Jerusalem Area, W. Harold Mare. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1987.

Discovering Jerusalem, Nahman Avigad. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984. Originally published in Jerusalem in Hebrew.

Archaeology and the Bible, John Elder. Robert Hale, London, 1961.

The Archaeology of the Land of Israel, Yohanan Aharoni. SCM Press, London, 1982. Originally published in Jerusalem in Hebrew.

The Bible and Archaeology, J. A. Thompson. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1982.

The Holy Land—An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700, Jerome Murphy- O’Connor. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986.

The Bible and Recent Archaeology, Kathleen Kenyon, revised by P. R. S. Moorey. British Museum Publications, London, 1987.

Recent Archaeology in the Land of Israel, edited by Hershel Shanks. Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington, 1985.

The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, 1980.

Biblical Archaeology Review. Bi-monthly magazine published by the Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington.

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