Ashkelon

One of the major cities of the Philistines (the others are Ashdod, Gaza, Ekron, and Gath), Ashkelon lies on the Mediterranean coast between Joppa and Gaza.

Ashkelon has had a long history of settlement before the arrival of Israel in the land, and was named in Egyptian texts as far back as the 19th Cent BC, and had been victim of Egyptian aggression on more than one occasions, having been sacked by Rameses II as well as Merenptah.

Though captured by the men of Judah during the initial conquest (Judg 1:18) the Philitine mastery of iron technology prevented them from holding on to the coastal plain, and the city soon reverted to the Philistines, and remained so for most of the duration Israel was in the land. Situated on the major highway along the coastal plain put the city in the direct path of the armies of the competing empires—Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek— and the city suffered repeated occupations and damage as a result. Jeremiah (47:5-7) and Zephaniah (2:4-7) predicted some of these attacks and sacking in the 7th Cent by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzer. Though the consequence was relatively minor, the city suffered the wrath of Samson when he felt that he was cheated in the riddle he posed his guests at his wedding feast (Judg 14:19). It became an independent city under the Greeks but was afterwards captured and made Hasmonean territory by Jonathan. Here in the city, in 73 BC, was born the baby who would become Herod the Great.

Ashkelon was famous for its onions, and from the name of the city we get the word scallion. Ashkelon is today an important industrial city in modern Israel.