The first biblical mention of the city of Gath is in Joshua 11:22, contextually speaking of the giants (Anakim) who remained in the land after the initial conquest: “None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod.” Gath was one of five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron (I Samuel 6:17). Gath was the more prominent and is mentioned in the Bible more often than any of these.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the best-known reference to Gath is due to the narrative of David’s killing of Goliath, the Philistine giant. The fearsome champion’s home was Gath (I Samuel 17:4). Later, David fled from King Saul, seeking asylum from Achish, king of Gath (I Samuel 21:10), but when he saw he was in danger there, David pretended to be insane. However, he was later successful in finding refuge at Gath (I Samuel 27:1ff), though the Philistines subsequently gave David his own city, Ziklag.<\/p>\n
When Saul and his son Jonathan (David’s best friend) died at Mt. Gilboa, David wrote a song that included the words, “Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon – Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph<\/em>” (II Samuel 1:20).<\/p>\n Like many biblical cities, Gath had lesser towns associated with it. “Later David defeated the Philistines and subdued them. He took Gath and its surrounding towns away from the Philistines<\/em>” (I Chronicles 18:1 NET). Later (ca. 755 BC), it was again a Philistine city (Amos 6:2), but in 711 BC, Gath was conquered by the Assyrian King Sargon II.<\/p>\n Also, bear in mind that when you see the word Gittite<\/em>, that reference is made to a resident of Gath. One of David’s most loyal followers was Ittai the Gittite. When David was forced to flee Jerusalem during his son Absalom’s rebellion, he told Ittai that he was not expected to accompany David. “But Ittai replied to the king, as surely as the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be<\/em>” (II Samuel 15:21 NIV). On-going excavations are taking place at Gath, Tell es-Safi, under the direction of Dr. Aren Maeir, professor at Bar-Ilan University.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Leon Mauldin via\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 2, February 2015 The first biblical mention of the city of Gath is in Joshua 11:22, contextually speaking of the giants (Anakim) who remained in the land after the initial conquest: “None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[223,1407],"class_list":["post-92861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-geography","tag-philistines"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10358,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-was-the-giant-with-six-fingers-and-toes\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":0},"title":"Who was the giant with six fingers and toes?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is the name of the giant that was killed (he had extra fingers and toes)? Answer: \"Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53291,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/whose-word-i-praise\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":1},"title":"Whose Word I Praise!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton David was on the run. The king of Israel, Saul, was determined to see him dead. His best friend, Saul's son, confirmed that Saul would not be deterred. The threat was so severe that David decided to flee into Philistine territory. The Philistines were no friends\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20694,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-amos-curse-those-who-introduced-instrumental-music-into-hebrew-worship\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":2},"title":"Did Amos curse those who introduced instrumental music into Hebrew worship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it true that Amos pronounced a curse upon those who, like David, introduced instrumental music into Hebrew worship? Answer: David did not introduce instrumental music into Israelite worship, God did. Long before David lived God commanded the Israelites to blow trumpets as part of their worship (Leviticus 23:24;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35884,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-adam-and-eve-have-six-fingers\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":3},"title":"Did Adam and Eve have six fingers?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In my genetics class today, my instructor said that the dominant gene for the number of fingers on a human is six, meaning five fingers is a recessive gene. This startled me because does that mean Adam and Eve had six fingers, and if that was dominant, then wouldn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15967,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-put-my-tears-in-your-bottle-mean-in-psalms-568\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":4},"title":"What does “put my tears in your bottle” mean in Psalms 56:8?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Can you help me with the meaning of Psalms 56:8, especially the part \"tears into thy bottle?\" Answer: \"You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?\" (Psalm 56:8). Each phrase is a reference to God remembering or recording what has happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15705,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/several-questions-from-i-samuel\/","url_meta":{"origin":92861,"position":5},"title":"Several questions from I Samuel","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: We are continuing our study of I Samuel in our ladies' class.\u00a0 We had a couple of questions.\u00a0 If you have time, we would appreciate your input. In I Samuel 21:5 do you think that the term \"vessels\" refers to the bodies of David's men?\u00a0 Does this indicate that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}