Gath #38

Gath was one of the five principal cities of the Philistines, along with Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron (Joshua 13:3; 1 Samuel 6:17). It stood on the edge of the Shephelah, the low hills between the coastal plain and the hill country of Judah, and so lay close to the border with Israel. The name means “winepress.” The Bible remembers Gath above all as the home of Goliath and as a refuge for David during his flight from Saul.

Biblical Significance

After the Philistines capture the ark of the covenant at Ebenezer, they carry it from Ashdod to Gath, where the Lord strikes the people of the city with tumors, and the ark is sent on to Ekron (1 Samuel 5:8-10). The Anakim, a people of great size, had survived in Gath, Gaza, and Ashdod after the conquest (Joshua 11:22), and Goliath, the champion who defies the armies of Israel, is “of Gath,” standing about six cubits and a span tall in the Hebrew text (1 Samuel 17:4). His defeat by David in the Valley of Elah is one of the best known stories of the Bible.

Ironically, Gath becomes David’s refuge. Fleeing from Saul, David goes to Achish, king of Gath, but the king’s servants recognize him as the man of whom the Israelites sing, and David, in fear, pretends to be insane until Achish sends him away (1 Samuel 21:10-15). Later, when David despairs of Saul’s pursuit, he returns with his six hundred men, and Achish gives him the town of Ziklag (1 Samuel 27:1-7). In David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, he cries, “Tell it not in Gath” (2 Samuel 1:20). Some of David’s most loyal followers came from Gath, including Ittai the Gittite and Obed-edom the Gittite (2 Samuel 15:18-22; 6:10-11).

Gath’s later story is one of decline. Uzziah of Judah tore down its wall (2 Chronicles 26:6), and Hazael, king of Aram, captured it (2 Kings 12:17). It is notably missing from some later prophetic lists of Philistine cities.

Today

Most scholars identify Gath with Tell es-Safi, a large mound in Israel about 20 miles (roughly 30 km) west of Jerusalem, overlooking the Valley of Elah. Excavations directed by Aren Maeir since 1996 have shown that it was one of the largest cities in the land in the Iron Age. The dig found a massive destruction level, dated to about 830 BC, which fits the capture by Hazael, along with a huge siege trench dug around the city. A potsherd from about the tenth or ninth century BC carries two names written in an early alphabetic script, ALWT and WLT, that resemble the name Goliath. The names are not the biblical Goliath, but they show that names of this form were used at Gath in the right era.