The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Max DePree
Judah loomed large over his brothers and over the Land of Israel. He was the natural leader, commanding the respect of his family at an early age. Even his father yielded to him.1Judah convinced Jacob to send Benjamin (with Judah as his guarantor) down to Egypt (Genesis 43:9). See “Judah’s Triumph” in this chapter. Chief of the children of Leah, he assumed the authority that the vacillating Reuben could not wield.
He had close kinship with Dan, Naphtali, Simeon, and Levi, but his most rocky and complex relationship was with his competitor, Joseph, leader of the children of Rachel. Understanding these brothers’ interactions throughout history clarifies greatly the personality of Judah, lion of Israel.2For discussions on the relationships between Judah and these other shevatim, see the chapters on Dan (8), Naphtali (9), Simeon (3), and Levi (4).
Let us begin, as always, with his mother Leah. She had already named three sons in succession, each one explicitly marking her relationship with Jacob. “Now my husband will love me,” “God has heard that I am hated,” “Now my husband will be attached to me.” Yet here, with the birth of her fourth son, something changed: “This time, I can thank God. So she called him Judah [lit. thanksgiving, acknowledgment]” (Genesis 29:35). Angst disappeared. Leah offered only thanksgiving for this unexpected gift.
Leah’s first attempts at mothering were essentially efforts to establish her role within the complex family dynamic: a man married to two sisters, one whom he loved desperately and the other whom he tolerated. Each son’s name was a testament to Leah’s attempts to turn her fortunes around. Yet here, with Judah, she settled down to pure mothering, delighting in this child who was to be unburdened by his mother’s anxieties. Judah marked a turning point for Leah; she was transformed from a cripplingly uncertain wife to the confident matriarch. Having borne a family while her sister remained barren, Leah felt that an imbalance had been righted.
At last, Leah discovered herself. In naming Judah, she identified her own most essential trait: “Leah held a distaff of hodayah, and men of hodayah came from her: Judah [from hodayah], David, Daniel” (Genesis Rabbah 71:5). What does hodayah mean? It can imply thanksgiving, admittance, obligation – all related concepts. I give thanks when I admit that I am obliged to someone else. This time, I shall thank God, sang Leah; I am indebted to Him – much obliged.
Judah embodied this new assuredness, this sense of self. He did not become embroiled in the contentious attack on Shechem, as Simeon and Levi did. In contrast to Reuben, he avoided over-involvement in his parents’ affairs. This was not because he was unaware or distant; he simply exhibited more constraint and thoughtfulness when faced with a difficult situation. Unlike the older, angry sons of Leah, he was anything but rash or hotheaded. While he disgraced himself time and again, he owned his actions, admitted his wrongdoing, and made the necessary reparations.
Judah’s Descent
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington
We have no explicit biblical reference as to who initiated the plot to kill Joseph. All of the brothers (excepting Benjamin) raged with jealousy at their father’s obvious preference for Joseph. They snorted derisively (or in alarm) at Joseph’s narcissistic dreams. Hate was rife in the air. Yet Judah first demonstrated leadership during the sale of Joseph.
The brothers deliberately left Joseph behind as they headed to Shechem to tend their flocks. Jacob sent Joseph after them, hoping to restore kinship. When the brothers saw him approaching, they plotted as one to kill him.
They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer! Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, and we can say, ‘A savage beast devoured him.’ We shall see what comes of his dreams.”
Genesis 37:18–20
Only Reuben abstained, interceding to save Joseph’s life. Instead of killing him directly, the brothers threw Joseph into a pit, naked to the elements, leaving him to languish to death. To demonstrate their resolve, they sat down to feast.
It was then that Judah first stepped into the role of leader – in an act that would cost him dearly.
Judah said to his brothers: “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.”
Genesis 37:26–27
It is unclear what motivated Judah to make this suggestion. Did he do so to spare Joseph’s life? Or did he hope for material gain beyond the satisfaction of destroying a hated brother?3Sanhedrin 6b. Both possibilities are latent in his argument. Regardless of his true motivation, the brothers agreed to the sale: “And his brothers listened to him” (Genesis 36:27).
Yet in the disastrous aftermath of their father’s unending grief, the brothers turned on Judah, attacking him for poor leadership. After the sale of Joseph, we are told: “About that time, Judah went down from his brothers… ” (Genesis 38:1). Rashi explains: “He was brought down in their esteem.”
The midrash elaborates: Upon seeing Jacob’s sorrow, the brothers were filled with remorse, and blamed Judah for the whole affair. Judah defended himself, reminding them that he had counseled against killing Joseph; it was thanks in part to him that Joseph’s life was spared! But they retorted: “Had you told us to restore him to our father we would have done so – we follow your lead!”4Rashi, Genesis 38:1, based on Tan. B. VaYeshev 8; BR 85:3; DR 7:4. Philo commented explicitly that Judah was the leader of his brothers (De Josepho 32).
The estrangement cut both ways. His brothers distanced themselves from him, but Judah also felt cut off – both from himself and from others. Rabbi Matis Weinberg describes this disorientation:
All human creativity and production are consequences of relationship, and failure at interpersonal excellence ultimately presages failure at life itself.…Yehuda disavows the petty concerns of human relationships…and becomes incapable of viable creativity.
Frameworks, Genesis, 224
Judah was affected by his actions in the sale of Joseph. Having ruthlessly debased Joseph by branding him little more than chattel, Judah himself was debased. He became isolated and remote. His relationships were temporary, divested of any real meaning or depth. They were essentially business arrangements. Having reduced brotherhood to a matter of property, his relationships became transactional, revolving around the issue of money. Judah began associating with Canaanites, entered into a strategic marriage with his business partner’s daughter, and saw his sons die young.
“And Judah went down from his brothers… ” It was quite a downfall for Judah to marry a non-Jew, quite a downfall that he buried his wife and children (Genesis Rabbah 85:2). It was a slippery slope. First, Judah lost his wife; then, two of his sons died for misdeeds. Then he did not do right by Tamar, his widowed daughter-in-law. Tamar, duty-bound to levirate marriage, at last set out to trick her father-in-law into performing the act. It was here that Judah hit his nadir, as he entered a transactional relationship with the disguised Tamar. Thinking her a prostitute, he paid her for her favors. The depravity of selling a brother precipitated the depravity of buying a woman.
Judah’s Triumph
Tamar fell pregnant, as she hoped she would, fulfilling the yibum requirement. And thus began Judah’s redemption. When Tamar was accused of marrying outside the bounds of levirate marriage, she called out Judah. Faced with his own responsibility, Judah made a choice. “She is more righteous than I!” he proclaimed. Not only did he exonerate Tamar from perceived misdeeds, he publicly confessed guilt. With that admission, Judah discovered his capacity for true leadership. Leaders of Israel must be able to put aside their egos and personal concerns and admit when they have erred. The ability to be modeh (cognate of Judah) – to concede to the verity and justice of a system far greater than one’s particular interest – that is the mark of a king. “The Holy One said to Judah: Because you were modeh, your brothers will be modeh that you be king over them” (Genesis Rabbah 99:8). That latent potential embodied in his name that had earlier made him a natural leader of his brothers was rediscovered and distilled. This moment marked the beginning of the rise of Judah that culminated when his father granted him the scepter.
We see Judah’s renewed leadership when the brothers descended to Egypt in search of food. Following the imprisonment of Simeon, the brothers returned to Jacob. Judah stepped into the breach left by Reuben’s faltering leadership.5See “Another Shot at Redemption” in chapter 1, on Reuben. It was he who took responsibility for Benjamin.
Unlike Reuben, whose rash and mad offer was scoffingly dismissed by Jacob,6Ibid. Judah bided his time before approaching his father. He intentionally waited until the food stores ran out,7Rashi, Genesis 43:2. when Jacob again ordered his sons to return to Egypt. Judah then gently helped Jacob absorb the inevitable: they had to return with Benjamin. Only a desperate Jacob could countenance parting with his youngest son, the sole remnant of Rachel. When Judah judged that his father was beginning to turn, he requested:
“Send the boy in my care.…I myself will be surety for him; you may hold me responsible; if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I shall stand guilty before you forever.… ” [Jacob answers,] “Take your brother too, and go back at once to the man.”
Genesis 43:8–13
As in the case of Tamar, Judah did not shirk his responsibility. When Joseph arrested Benjamin on trumped-up charges, refusing to release him, Judah rose up in protest.
And Judah went up to him [Joseph] and said…“Your servant, my father [Jacob], said to us: ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. But one is gone from me, and I said, Alas! He was torn by a beast! And I have not seen him since! If you take this one [Benjamin] from me, too, and he meets with disaster, you will send my white head down to Sheol in sorrow.’…Now your servant [Judah] has pledged himself for the boy [Benjamin] to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father forever.’ Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers.”
Genesis 44:18–33
Here was the transformation of Judah. He rectified his earlier flaws: he protected his kin, he embraced accountability, he obligated himself beyond his own individual interest. Beyond even that, Judah demonstrated his commitment to and love for his father and family that were so deep that personal hurt ceased to matter at all. Consider the words he put into his father’s mouth: “My wife bore me two sons” (Genesis 44:27). This open acknowledgment was a matter-of-fact acceptance that Rachel and her sons were the principals to Jacob, and that he, Judah, would always run second place in his father’s affections. Effective leadership is found in one who can accurately assess and accept reality, and then adjust his vision and strategy to that reality. With his finessing of both Jacob and Joseph, Judah emerged the monarch.8The nofech (emerald, or turquoise) was chosen as the stone representing Judah to symbolize this essential trait. Judah turned green with embarrassment upon admitting his sin with Tamar, so his stone shone green as a testament to this admirable virtue (Rabbenu Baĥya, Exodus 28:17).
Judah and Joseph
In the crucible of the fight for Benjamin, Judah proved himself capable of being the champion even of those he once wished to destroy: the children of Rachel. It was therefore Judah that Jacob sent before him to Goshen, so that he might prepare the land for Israel’s resettlement. The verse was very particular as to Jacob’s instruction to Judah: that he go “ahead of him, to Joseph, to prepare Goshen before his arrival.”9Genesis 46:28. Joseph was already in Egypt. His tasks – to unite the Children of Israel, to act as liaison to the nations of the world, to build a “foundation for nationhood and malkhut,”10Weinberg, Patterns in Time: Chanukah, 196–97. were fulfilled.11See “Manasseh: The Diaspora Jew” in chapter 13. Judah followed Joseph, building on what Joseph had already achieved. This pattern repeated itself throughout Jewish history: David followed Saul (of benei Rachel), and the Messiah of the House of David will ultimately follow the Messiah of Joseph.12Sukkah 52a.
Both Rachel’s and Leah’s sons were critical to the monarchy of Israel, though with different roles. And though their roles and distinct personalities clashed time and again, eventually they will work in harmony, as they did in Goshen. The prophets attested to this tension: “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim” (Isaiah 11:13), and: “Take a stick and write on it ‘Judah’…take another stick and write on it ‘Joseph’…Bring them close to each other, so that they become one stick, joined together in your hand” (Ezekiel 37:16–17).
Judah the King
A man’s a man,
But when you see a king,
you see the work
Of many thousand men.
George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy
Jacob exuberantly blessed Judah with the monarchy:
You, Judah, your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the nape of your foes; your father’s sons shall bow low to you.Judah is a lion’s whelp; on prey, my son, have you grown. He crouches, lies down like a lion, like the king of beasts – who dare rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet; until he comes to Shiloh, and the homage of peoples be his.
Genesis 49:8–80
Judah’s flag was emblazoned with a lion, symbol of monarchy and acknowledgment of the central theme pervading Jacob’s blessing. Moses’ blessing to the tribe echoed the matter of Judah’s military leadership: “May his hands fight for him, and help him, God, against his foes” (Deuteronomy 33:7). Judah was clearly the sovereign tribe of Israel, blessed and burdened with leading the nation in war.
The determinant of Judah’s monarchy was implied within Jacob’s blessing. Jacob celebrated the fact that Judah’s growth and transformation was due to the very prey (mi-teref beni alita) that he claimed was torn apart by another (tarof taraf Yosef). The aftermath of the sale of Joseph led to Judah’s great shift of focus away from his own individual aspirations, and onto others: first Tamar, and then his whole family.
Judah’s quality of hoda’ah was what made him the king. Hoda’ah is the confession that one is but part of a much larger system that demands that one subjugate the ego, so that one may reflect the system itself.
Royalty is successful when the monarch is not promoting himself, but refracts the greatness of his kingdom through his person instead. The “royal we” reflects the power of the totality represented by the king. Judah deeply understood the working system of nation, and rejected the dream of a society composed of individuals.13The benei Yosef provide the opposing vision of the power of the individual. This is why “the scepter will not depart from Judah”…and why the House of David is the eternal royal legacy of Israel.
David, not his predecessor Saul, was granted the enduring monarchy because of two words: “ĥatati le-Hashem” (I have sinned before the Lord).14II Samuel 12:13. His ability to admit to his sin with Batsheva, where he impregnated her and then finessed her husband Uriyah’s death, was the key trait that assured his eternal kingdom.15For a thorough treatment of the exact nature of David’s sin, his ensuing punishment, and how he emerged with the crown still intact, see יעקב מדן, ״מגילת בת־שבע,״ מגדים יח–יט (תשנ״ג), 67–167. “He who covers up his faults will not succeed; he who confesses and gives them up will find mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Saul could not come to terms with his wrongdoings. He could not admit (modeh), so he could not wear the crown. “The scepter will not depart from Judah”; the scepter belongs only to the one who is modeh.
Judah and his descendants admitted their wrongdoings, obliged themselves to the kelal, and came at last to embody the most sublime aspect of their tribal name: hodayah (thanksgiving, praise). David, the composer of psalms, wove a common thread through many of his poetic arrangements: “Praise the Lord, for He is good!” (Hodu le-Hashem ki tov). Thanksgiving is an expression of gratitude, of acknowledging the good that someone else has done for me.
Though kingship today is not active, and we wait for the Messiah of David to reintroduce that concept to the world, David’s masterful psalms still inspire. That expressive element of David – his confessional, thankful, and praising psalms – serves his nation for all generations.
Naĥalat Yehudah
The contours of Naĥalat Yehudah as described in Joshua 15 are fairly clear. The tribe’s territory was the entirety of the south of Eretz Yisrael, enclosing the much smaller naĥalah of Simeon. Benjamin and Dan were directly to their north. The border between Judah and these shevatim was the ancient Maale Adumim highway from the Dead Sea. Upon reaching ancient Jerusalem (Ir David), Judah’s border skirted the city to the south along the points of En-Rogel (Bir Ayyub) and the Valley of Hinnom.
From that point, the northern border wandered northwest toward Nephtoah (present-day Lifta) and faithfully followed today’s main modern highway linking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At the present-day Sha’ar HaGai junction, the border turned sharply south, along the route followed by today’s Highway 38 toward Beth-shemesh, where it continued west along the Sorek River, ending at the Mediterranean.
The tribe’s southern border descended from the bottom of the Dead Sea, sharing a border with Edom to the east, and turned westward along Ma’ale Akrabim until Kadesh-barnea. The whole southeastern swath, from Ma’ale Akrabim west to Kadesh-barnea, was called the Wilderness of Zin. From Kadesh-barnea, the border climbed northeast along the Brook of Egypt (Wadi el-’Arish) and ended at the Mediterranean.
The eastern and western borders? Easy enough: the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.
This naĥalah was the largest of them all, expressing the grandeur of the shevet. Imposing mountains, gentle coast, placid plains, generous hills, blasted desert – Naĥalat Yehudah has all temperaments. Just as a king is not his own man alone but is a reflection of the nation, so too Judah contained within its territory all manner of landscape, a perfect distillation of varied perspectives.
Visiting Naĥalat Yehudah
Itinerary: Herodium/Elah Valley/Khirbet Quieyafa (Shaaraim?)/Lachish
Since Judah was the royal shevet, a tour through its naĥalah should highlight major monarchial monuments. We begin at Herodium, the Judean fortress-palace and most personal building project of King Herod.16Herod was not Judean (he was an Idumean), but he was one of the most famous kings in Jewish history. He was an infamously paranoid megalomaniac, killing off family members and others whom he felt threatened his throne. Herod was responsible for numerous monumental building projects, among them Caesarea, Masada, and the splendid Temple in Jerusalem. Herod nearly despaired at this location when he was being pursued by the Parthians in 37 Bce. He persevered, though, and later chose this spot to erect a startling conical monument to personal triumph that he named after himself. It was here that he entertained Marcus Auerelius from his frescoed theatre built into a massive artificial mountain. He willed the dry and tepid landscape to yield bathing pools, cavernous water cisterns, gardens, and massive towers. Everything was in the round – towers, walls, collonades – evincing his marvelous aesthetic and powerful pocketbook, since this design was a particularly expensive undertaking. It was in Herodium that he chose to be buried.
Herodium tells some marvelous stories: of Herod, certainly, but also of the zealous Jews who escaped to here during the Roman siege on Jerusalem in 68 CE and unceremoniously mauled the fortress’s colonnade and triclinium.17A colonnade is a decorative series of columns, and a triclinium is a formal dining area. Both are standard Roman architectural features. They hewed mikvaot into the manicured Roman lawns and repurposed the dining area of the palace for a synagogue. These stragglers held out for a little while, until the Romans, finished with Jerusalem, turned to battle the renegade Jews here and in Masada. Fifty years later, the guerilla soldiers of Bar Kokhba tunneled dozens of subterranean channels in Herodium, skillfully dodging the menacing Roman Tenth Legion for a few years, before they too were defeated.
Take a walk around Herodium’s walls. East are the sand-and-red gorges of the Judean Desert as they tumble steeply hundreds of meters down to the Dead Sea. Face west, and recall Jacob’s blessing to Judah:
He ties his foal to the grapevine, his donkey to a choice vine;
He washes his garment in wine, his robe in blood of grapes.
His eyes are dark from wine,
His teeth are white from milk.
Genesis 49:11–12
The watershed line that bisects the central mountain range from Jerusalem to Hebron spills out in both directions with vineyards and olive groves. Sheep graze among the grapevines, white and purple swirling in the distance like milk droplets in a wine flask. These terraces dip and bend, dip and bend, as lulling as waves on a beach. Tan, green, purple, white are the terraced hills, echoing the colors that bathe Jacob’s blessing to Judah.
Chaim Mageni offered wonderful insight into the nature of Naĥalat Yehudah, seen most pronouncedly from this vantage point. He noted that famous Judean towns, such as Bethlehem and Herodium, offered up “two faces”: a face to the mountain and a face to the wilderness (panim la-har u-panim la-midbar). These towns were situated on the eastern end of the Judean hills. Facing west are the terraced mountains described above. Facing east is the Judean Desert, with its craggy and desolate terrain. The hills were prime land for agriculture, and the midbar was naturally suited to raising livestock.18There was enough wild vegetation in Midbar Yehudah to make it ideal pastureland, as evidenced to this day by the Bedouin who raise livestock in this desert. The Hebrew term for pasturing sheep is להדביר את הצאן, related to מדבר. Two biblical verses directly reference דבר in the sense of “pasture” (Micah 2:12 and Isaiah 5:17). Mageni suggested that in the family of Yishai from Bethlehem, the older sons were farmers, while the younger son (David) shepherded the flock, since the land suited both occupations.19חיים מגני, חיים ביהודה (שלמי אריאל, תשס״ד), 50.
One more thought while you stand at the top of Herodium: spreading out before you to the west are the revitalized yishuvim of Gush Etzion. The four original Jewish settlements, destroyed in 1948 by the Arabs, have been rebuilt tenfold. Gorgeously planned yishuvim, home to thousands of Israelis, dot the hilltops. Here, you can be a dreamer who never awakens.
A song of ascents: When the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion, we will be as dreamers. Our mouths shall be filled with laughter; our tongues, with songs of joy. Though he goes along weeping, carrying the seed-bag, he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves.
Psalms 126
Drive west through these terraced mountains on Road 367. You are in “Patriarch country,” crossing the hills canvassed in antiquity by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along their many journeys. Merge west onto Route 375 and drive along the Elah Valley riverbed, site of the epic biblical showdown between David and Goliath. To your left is Socoh, described in the Bible as the assembly point of the Philistines as they arrayed against Saul’s Israelite army: “The Philistines assembled their forces for battle; they massed at Socoh of Judah.…The Philistines were stationed on one hill and Israel was stationed on the opposite hill; the valley was between them” (I Samuel 17:1–3).
We turn onto Route 38 and shortly thereafter, right before the Azekah junction, make a sharp right onto the Israel National Trail dirt road leading up to Khirbet Qeiyafa, the newest vantage point to contemplate the importance of this formative experience to young David.20Still popular are Socoh and Tel ‘Azeqa as the classic outlooks overlooking the verdant Elah Valley to tell the story of David and Goliath. Some inventive guides have also promoted the custom of stopping by the Elah Stream itself, selecting some smooth stones, inscribing them with the name “David” and throwing them into the river. The boy came into his own with an understanding that his facing Goliath was not a battle of brute strength, but rather a display of Divine Providence in facing down the enemy: “David said to the Philistine: You come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of the Lord!” (I Samuel 17:45). David, of course, wielded the stronger weapon, and he felled the giant in the very valley that we overlook from Khirbet Qeiyafa.
As you wander around the site, take in the two impressive identical four-chambered city gates, as well as the large casemate wall21A casemate wall is a city wall made of two parallel walls with internal chambers. Casemate walls were constructed in antiquity for fortification and defense. with ten abutting residential structures. A massive palatial structure was excavated at the center of the site. Unseen are the hundreds of pottery vessels, cultic objects, seals, and metal implements uncovered during seven excavation seasons.
This relatively small city (only six acres large) was enclosed by a four-meter-thick casemate wall (approx. thirteen feet thick), built of ashlars (large dressed stones) that weigh in at nearly ten tons, and including two sophisticated gates. One gate faced west, directly toward the Philistine city of Gath, Goliath’s home, around six miles due west of Khirbet Qeiyafa, and the other faced east toward Socoh and Hebron. This unusual phenomenon (two gates in a city wall is unheard of in this region, even among much larger cities like Lachish and Jerusalem) led archaeologists to suggest that the city be identified as the biblical Shaaraim (“Two Gates”).22I Samuel 17:52.
The excavations at Qeiyafa have had a huge impact on what has been the prevailing battle within biblical archaeology circles for the past generation: whether the early monarchial period in Judea was a major, nation-building era or rather a time when relatively minor chieftains (namely, David and Solomon) ruled over unfortified villages. Until now, the lack of archaeological evidence decidedly supported the latter theory; to wit, in the period of the early monarchy (eleventh century Bce), the excavated sites in Judea (Lachish, Arad, Beer-sheba, among others) were unfortified, small agricultural villages, and not the massive cities one might expect in David’s kingdom. The Qeiyafa excavation turned this lack of evidence on its head. The site is now definitively dated to 1000–970 Bce, based on carbon-dating analysis of burnt olive pits from the destruction level of the city, as well as pottery analysis. In other words, the site is now definitively dated to the time of King David’s reign – and it is the first place in the region that strongly attests to the urbanity and establishment of the Davidic kingdom. It took significant manpower and wealth to construct the impressive fortifications found in Khirbet Qeiyafa. The excavators of the site are assured in their determination that Qeiyafa was a well-planned fortified city, and not a rural settlement. Thus, Qeiyafa presents a strong argument for traditionalists who posit that King David was not a tribal chieftain, but rather an important king of substantial means who indeed fortified the southern areas of his kingdom.23In a related landmark find in 1993 in Tel Dan, excavators identified an inscription reading “House of David” as dating to the ninth century Bce, attesting for the first time to the objective truth of the Davidic dynasty.
The first few weeks of excavation yielded the most important – and remarkable – discovery at the site. The archaeological team uncovered an inscribed ostracon (a pottery sherd that was used in the ancient world in lieu of paper) with Hebrew words written in proto-Canaanite script (an alphabet that predates even the ancient ketav Ivri, the Phoenician-like script in which Hebrew was written throughout the Iron Period). This may be the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered! Some of the words that the epigraphers could decipher at first glance were melekh (king), shofet (judge), and eved (servant).
A visit to Khirbet Qeiyafa catapults one back to the very stirrings of the Davidic dynasty, to a site that may very well have been built and fortified by a centralized Israelite administration in Judea, and later occupied by King David and his troops. It likely was witness to the Philistine/Israelite showdown in the Elah Valley that thrust David into the national limelight. The strongly built city would have served as an Israelite fortification against the Philistine coastal plain, with Philistine Gath menacing just a bit to the west.
Take in one more fascinating tel during your day in Judah. This one cannot be beat for bringing the Bible to life. A visit to Lachish, centrally located in Naĥalat Yehudah, highlights the mundane affairs involved in administering townships during the monarchial period, as well as the dramatic moments of Jewish history.
Lachish does not generally figure on the typical tourist itinerary, due mostly to its rather remote location and erroneously assigned inconsequence. Lachish was mentioned twenty-two times in Tanakh. It was a large and important city in Judea, paralleled by huge Hazor in the north and eclipsed in prominence only by Jerusalem (in fact a much smaller city than Lachish). Many foreign kings saw Lachish as a city that must be conquered in their quests to vanquish the region. Thus, Lachish was witness to many crucial battles in the history of Israel, battles that were described both in Tanakh and in the annals of the ancient world’s foreign empires.
Let’s start with the tel. A tel is a mound, unique to the Middle East, formed by layers of occupation over thousands of years. As one society built its city on the ruins of a previous period, the site rose and the original landscape was permanently altered. Layer upon layer of civilization caused quite a build-up. After all, there was no reason to break new ground when building a new city when the original infrastructure and building materials were already abundant at a site that was obviously strategically important enough for previous periods to occupy! Such was the landscape at Lachish – you cannot miss this tel rising above the surrounding low hills of the shefelah (the Judean foothills).
Originally a Canaanite city, Lachish was conquered by Joshua (Joshua 10:31–32). If we place the period of the conquest of the Land of Israel by Joshua and the Israelites in the Iron I period (1250–1000 Bce), as most scholars do, then we have evidence of Joshua’s conquest of Lachish on site. The remains of a burnt Iron I Canaanite temple complex, on the acropolis of the tel, were uncovered. The popular theory is that Joshua destroyed this pagan temple in his mission to conquer the cities of Eretz Yisrael and rid the land of idolatry.24David Ussishkin, “Lachish: Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan?” BAR 13:1 (Jan/Feb 1987): 18–39.
The Israelites then occupied Lachish and built a large palace – the foundations of which are still present – on top of the ruins of the earlier Canaanite palace. Over the years of Israelite presence in Lachish, during the reigns of such illustrious kings as David, Solomon, and their descendants, Lachish grew to become a massive, significant administrative center, heavily fortified by a six-meter-thick wall (approx. twenty feet thick) with the most impressive gate system as yet excavated in Israel.
A number of years after Shalmaneser and Sargon, kings of Assyria, exiled the Northern Kingdom of Israel, their successor, Sennacherib, set his sights on Malkhut Yehudah, the Southern Kingdom, ruled by the righteous Hezekiah:
In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched against all the fortified towns of Judah, and seized them. King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, at Lachish: “I have done wrong; withdraw from me and I shall bear whatever you impose on me.”
II Kings 18:13–1425Also II Chronicles 32:9.
Sennacherib conquered Lachish in 701 Bce. He used the captured city as his base of operations while planning his ultimate conquest: Jerusalem, capital of Judah. We know, however, that he was unsuccessful in penetrating Jerusalem, and returned to Nineveh (best known as the city the prophet Jonah was commanded to rebuke harshly) after dismantling his siege.26II Kings 19:35. Sennacherib corroborated his failure to seize Jerusalem, boasting only that “Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage” (text from the Taylor Prism, one of Sennacherib’s commissioned inscriptions of his annals discovered in Nineveh and dating to 691 Bce).
But what of Lachish? Does the archaeological evidence bear out the account in Tanakh?
A visitor to Lachish can easily make out the impressive Assyrian siege ramp (100 meters/328 feet long!) constructed by Sennacherib to penetrate the city. The Israelites inside Lachish tried to defend the city by erecting an interior counter-ramp, thereby raising the height of the city wall and forcing the Assyrians to likewise raise the height of their ramp to overcome the new defenses. The defensive measures, however, were to no avail. The Assyrians fought viciously and relentlessly, leaving behind masses of weapons, scales of armor, and hundreds of slingshots and arrowheads on the ramp and inside the city wall for archaeologists to discover thousands of years later. Add the macabre discovery of 1,500 piled skulls in a nearby cave, and the evidence decidedly points to a massive defeat of the Israelites at Lachish.
Sennacherib himself immortalized the battle against Lachish in a series of monumental reliefs, a specific art form of engraved stone, commissioned for his palace at Nineveh. These reliefs depicted the siege of Lachish and its defeat, complete with the ramp, ammunition, and major weaponry used against the city. Depictions of Israelites being cruelly killed and led off into captivity wearing chains were in every frame. Sennacherib made sure to include an image of the complex gate system, the remains of which are on the tel, as a specific point of pride in conquering the well-fortified Judean city. The Lachish siege reliefs are on permanent exhibit at the British Museum, along with other remains of Assyrian Nineveh.
Rarely is a historical event found in the annals or monumental inscriptions or art of the ancient world paralleled in Tanakh (which, of course, was not meant to be a work of history). When we do find such parallels, it is cause for much excitement. Such is the case with the Lachish reliefs of Sennacherib – extra-biblical evidence of a sorrowful defeat in Malkhut Yehudah.
One last marvelous find at Lachish is worthy of note. The destroyed city was rebuilt, albeit on a smaller scale, by King Josiah, great-grandson of Hezekiah, sometime between 639 and 609 Bce. A short while after that, Lachish was again targeted by a mortal enemy: this time, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, as he waged his destructive campaign against Judah and her final king, Zedekiah, on the eve of the Destruction of the First Temple, in 586 Bce. A cache of eighteen ostraca (inscribed pottery sherds) were found at Lachish. These letters preserved the last moments of the Jewish fighters’ stance against the Babylonians. Most of the letters were dispatches from a Jewish sergeant named Hoshaya to his commander at Lachish, reflecting the events recorded by the prophet Jeremiah:
When the army of the king of Babylon was waging war against Jerusalem and against the remaining towns of Judah – against Lachish and Azekah; for they were the only fortified towns of Judah that were left…
Jeremiah 34:7
Hoshaya wrote an urgent message to Lachish, his correspondence serving as a virtual glimpse into the tumult of those days. The message was immortalized on one of the ostraca discovered: “Let my lord know that we are watching over the beacon of Lachish, according to the signals which my lord gave, for Azekah is not seen.” This letter, in light of the verse in Jeremiah that spoke of Azekah and Lachish as the only two cities left before Nebuchadnezzar’s war machine reached Jerusalem, is especially poignant. Neighboring Azekah had fallen; we know that Lachish was next to go.
A final note on Lachish: the site was also well known for the discovery of several complete storage jars, dated to the reign of King Hezekiah. These were large jars stamped with the impression of the letters LMLK (for the king) on their handles. The jars’ contents would have been designated as government taxes, religious tithes, or military rations. All three possibilities attested to the extensive civil administration of the monarchy, based in Jerusalem but recognized throughout Naĥalat Yehudah.