(Photo: Shmuel Bar-Am)
By Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am - November 12, 2022
Rarely do archeologists and historians have written proof that positively identifies a Holy Land site mentioned in the Bible. That’s why the rock inscription discovered at Tel Jazer in the early 1870s made such a splash: the words written on the rock, in ancient Hebrew, read: “Boundary of Gezer.” Over the years, quite a few more Gezer boundary stones have been recovered on the tel, or hill.
The word “Gezer” appears in the Bible over a dozen times. Its third mention is within the context of the territories assigned to the Israelites who, after the Exodus and a 40-year sojourn in the desert, were primed to settle down in the land that God had said would be theirs. That Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey, was also filled with Canaanite cities that didn’t take the Israelite invasion lying down. And while the Israelites did manage to conquer a number of Canaanite cities, several others didn’t capitulate.
One of these was Gezer, which Joshua had assigned to the tribe of Ephraim. A large and important city, Gezer was part of the Egyptian empire and ruled by people who corresponded often with the Pharaohs. It was only during King Solomon’s reign hundreds of years after the Israelites failed to take the city that Gezer fell under Israelite control. Even then, this happened only because the reigning Pharaoh devastated the city, slew the inhabitants, and offered Gezer to King Solomon as a gift when the Israelite monarch married his daughter.
Read More: Times of Israel