Lachish: Impregnable, a royal Canaanitish city in the Shephelah, or maritime
plain of Palestine
(Joshua 10:3,5; 12:11) It was taken and destroyed by
the Israelites
(Joshua 10:31-33) It afterwards became, under Rehoboam,
one of the strongest fortresses of Judah
(2 Chronicles 11:9) It was assaulted
and probably taken by Sennacherib
(2 Kings 18:14,17; 19:8; Isaiah 36:2) An
account of this siege is given on some slabs found in the chambers of
the palace of Koyunjik, and now in the British Museum. The
inscription has been deciphered as follows:, "Sennacherib, the mighty
king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of
judgment before the city of Lachish: I gave permission for its
slaughter."
Lachish has been identified with Tell-el-Hesy, where a cuneiform
tablet has been found, containing a letter supposed to be from
Amenophis at Amarna in reply to one of the Amarna tablets sent by
Zimrida from Lachish. This letter is from the chief of Atim (=Etam,)
(1 Chronicles 4:32) to the chief of Lachish, in which the writer expresses
great alarm at the approach of marauders from the Hebron hills. "They
have entered the land," he says, "to lay waste ...strong is he who has
come down. He lays waste." This letter shows that "the communication
by tablets in cuneiform script was not only usual in writing to Egypt,
but in the internal correspondence of the country. The letter, though
not so important in some ways as the Moabite stone and the Siloam
text, is one of the most valuable discoveries ever made in Palestine"
(Conder's Tell Amarna Tablets, p. 134 Excavations at Lachish are
still going on, and among other discoveries is that of an iron
blast-furnace, with slag and ashes, which is supposed to have existed
B.C. 1500 If the theories of experts are correct, the use of the
hot-air blast instead of cold air (an improvement in iron manufacture
patented by Neilson in 1828 was known fifteen hundred years before
Christ.
