Gezer

Biblical Text

Gezer is a city mentioned in several books of the Old Testament.

• Period of the conquest: According to Joshua 10:33, Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish and was defeated by Joshua. The king of Gezer also appears in the list of conquered kings in Joshua 12:12.
• Tribal allotment: Gezer lay on the border of the territory of the children of Joseph, that is, the tribe of Ephraim (Joshua 16:3). The Ephraimites, however, did not drive out the Canaanites who lived there. The Canaanites dwelt among Ephraim and were put to forced labor (Joshua 16:10; Judges 1:29).
• Levitical city: Joshua 21:21 and 1 Chronicles 6:67 record Gezer as one of the cities given to the Kohathite Levites.
• Time of David: David struck the Philistines as far as Gezer (2 Samuel 5:25; 1 Chronicles 14:16). First Chronicles 20:4 reports a battle with the Philistines at Gezer.
• Time of Solomon: According to 1 Kings 9:15–17, Pharaoh king of Egypt captured Gezer, burned it, and killed the Canaanites who lived in it. Pharaoh gave the city as a present to his daughter, who had become the wife of Solomon, and Solomon built Gezer along with Hazor and Megiddo.

Background

Gezer stood where the great highway running along the coastal plain met the road ascending to Jerusalem, which made it a site of strategic importance for both military and commercial purposes. Scholars generally identify Gezer with Tel Gezer (a tell is a mound formed by the accumulated layers of an ancient city) near modern Ramla in Israel. The identification is known to rest on the discovery, in the rocks surrounding the mound, of inscribed stones reading "boundary of Gezer."

The name also appears in extrabiblical records, most notably the Amarna Letters, diplomatic correspondence sent to the Egyptian royal court around the fourteenth century BC, and the victory stele of the Egyptian king Merneptah. Excavations in the early twentieth century uncovered the "Gezer Calendar," a stone tablet listing the year's agricultural tasks month by month. It is regarded as one of the oldest Hebrew inscriptions, although scholars differ on its exact date.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Gezer is a prime example of a city illustrating that the conquest of Canaan was left incomplete. The books of Joshua and Judges repeatedly record that Canaanites who were not driven out remained among Israel. Gezer came into Israel's hands only later, in the time of Solomon, and then by way of Egypt. The city does not appear in the New Testament. It reappears under the name "Gazara" in 1 Maccabees, one of the books of the Apocrypha, in events belonging to the intertestamental period.

Interpretations and Issues

• Solomonic gates: The archaeologist Yigael Yadin identified gates of similar design at Gezer, Hazor, and Megiddo and connected them with Solomon's building activity in 1 Kings 9:15. Some scholars, however, date these remains later, and the question remains under debate.
• Identity of the pharaoh: Scripture does not name the pharaoh who attacked Gezer. Scholars have proposed several kings as candidates, but none has been confirmed.
• Textual differences: Second Samuel 21:18 places a battle with the Philistines at "Gob," while 1 Chronicles 20:4, which reports the same event, names "Gezer." Some attribute this difference to the process of scribal transmission, while others take the two as neighboring locations.
• Devotional interpretation: Sermons sometimes read Ephraim's failure to drive out the Canaanites as an example of incomplete obedience. The text itself records only that, as a result, the Canaanites were put to forced labor.