an unsuccessful assault upon Jerus.; but, after |
causing great loss of life among his fellow-citizens, he was driven an outcast to the land of the Am- monites, from there to the court of Aretas an Arabian prince, then into Egypt, and lastly to the L., in whose country he died a dishonoured exile. The reason of his ultimate recourse to the latter people was the alleged kinship between the Jews and the Greeks, resting on the supposed connexion between Peleg and the Pelasgians, a prehistoric Fecple mentioned as living in different parts of
reece and coasts of the A’gean Sea. Peleg, how- ever, or Phaleg, whose name implies ‘ division’ (Jos. Ant. I. vi. 4), the ancestor of Abraham and the son of Heber,—the eponymous ancestor of the Hebrew race,—was (Jos. 2b.) the great-grandson of Noah, and belonged to the Semitic family. The Pelasgians, on the other hand, were part of the Indo-European stock, and afterwards mingled with the Hellenes in Greece, and with the Carians, J.ydians, and Phrygians in Asia Minor.
LITERATURE.—Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vols. i. and iii., Appen- dixes and Notes. C. H. PRICHARD.
LACHISH (v5, LXX Aaxels, twice with the art.
τὴν Aaxeis Jos 10°, in Jos 15° B Μαχής, ΒΡ Λαχής; Vulg. Lachis).—An important fortified town in Judah. Its king, Japhia, formed a league with four other Canaanite kings, viz. those of Jerus., Eglon, Hebron, and Jarmuth, to smite the Gibeonites, as they had made peace with Israel (Jos 10%, JE mainly). Joshua overcame the united forces, and the kings fled to a cave in Makkedah, where they were pursued by thie Israelites, who rolled stones against the mouth of the cave. Later, the kings were taken out, humiliated, and hanged on five trees. by command of Joshua, their bodies were taken down and placed in the cave, at whose mouth stones were again rolled.
* Elsewhere pdathil is rendered in AV ‘bound’ Nu 1915;
*ribband’ Nu 1688 (RV ‘cord’); ‘thread’ Jg 169(RV ‘string’); |
‘line’ Ezk 403; ‘bracelets’ Gn 8818 (RV ‘cord’) 38% (RV atrds’); ‘wires’ Ex 393,
At sunset, |
The siege of L. by |
LACHISH 15
Joshua, according to D*, occupied parts of two days (vv.3!- 82), When it was taken, all the inhabitants were put to the sword.
The place is next wentioned in the list of cities built by Rehoboam for defence, by which it may be understood that he re-fortified the town (2Ch 11%), Amaziah fled to L. from a conspiracy in Jerus., but he was pursued and slain there (2K 1419} 2 Ch 25”). The prophet Micah inveighs against L.as ‘the beginning of sin to the daughter otf Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee’ (Mic 1%), an enigmatical utterance, the conjectures regarding the meaning of which will be found in Nowack’s Comm. ad loc. When Sen- nacherib made his raid on the kingdom of Judah, he took all the fortified cities, including L. (2 Καὶ 1815-14, Ts 361), The scene of the siege is depicted in an Assyr. sculpture, now in the British Museum. To this place Hezekiah sent messengers with immense gifts and promises of submission, to induce the Assyr. king, who was there encamped, to abandon the campaign (2 K 1816). In reply, Sennacherib
| despatched a great host against Jerus. (2 Καὶ 187||
Is 367). But his forces were miraculously destroyed, and he returned to Assyria, abandoning his con- quests) (2) Ke 1035.58} Ts) 373-275 2 Ch 895). ‘The account in 2 Ch 32° mentions the envoys sent to Hezekiah, but not the expedition against Jerus., as it says of Sennacherib, ‘ but he (himself laid siege) to L., and all his power with him.’ When ec. 190 years later, Nebuch. king of Babylon, destroyed the kingdom of Judah and carried the people into captivity, L. was one of the cities taken (Jer 347). On the return of the Jews, L. was one of the places re-oceupied, but it is noticeable that while
,each of the other places is spoken of as being,
oceupied ‘with the villages thereof,’ ‘ Lachish and the fields thereof’ are referred to as if the occupation was but feeble (Neh 11°). It is not mentioned in the NT, nor in the Apocrypha. Scholars are now generally agreed that L. is to be identified with Tell el-Hesy, a mound in the rolling country between the maritime plain and the Judzean hills, 16 miles E. of Gaza, a little to the north. This identification was first proposed by Conder, who sees in the radicals of the modern name a reminiscence of the ancient, though the change in the second radical from 3 to n is unusual. The position of Tell el-Hesy corresponds fairly with Jerome’s description of L. in the Onomasticon. He says: ‘Lachis in tribu Juda. . . et nunc est villa in septimo milliario ab Eleutheropoli euntibus Daromam.’ Eleutheropolis is the modern Beit Jibrin, 10 miles from Tell el-Hesy, which nearly coincides. Daroma may be the Shephelah, or low country, in which Tell el-Hesy is situated. Another equally important mound, Tell en-Nejileh, is found 34 miles to the south of Tell el-Hesy, about the same distance from Beit Jibrin. Both have springs at their base. These two mounds seem to represent L. and Eglon, which were within easy marching distance, as Joshua took Eglon on the day that he left L. (Jos 10%), As Eglon disappears from history earlier than L., and as the remains on the top of Tell en-Nejileh are earlier than those on the top of Tell el-Hesy, Petrie regards the former as Eglon and the later as Lachish. However, until syste- matic excavations are conducted at Tell en-Nejileh, the matter should not be held to be finally settled. The site of Tell el-Hesy is admirably suited for a town, as the original dwellings stood on a bluff facing east, some 60 feet above the Wady el-Hesy, and were further protected by ridges to the west During the course of centuries the remains accumu lated, until the last occupation stood some 120 feet above the stream-bed. In 1890, Petrie, excavating for the Pal. Explor. Fund, studied the ¢e//, during