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AZOTUS ( Ἄζωτος, ἡ)

ERAN ALMAGOR

Jerusalem

An important Philistine commercial city about 4 kilometers from the MEDITERRANEAN coast, situated between ASCALON and inland Ekron (BA 70 F2). Semitic Ashdod (perhaps “a fortified place, stronghold,” from shadad, i.e., “ravager”), Azotus in Greek; later, in Hellenistic times, the city adopted the Greek version of its name (1 Macc. 5:68, 10:77; Acts 8:40). It was a member of the Philistine Pentapolis (Jeremiah 25:20, Joshua 11:22, 15:46–47) with its own distinct dialect (Nehemiah 13:24). Sargon II of Assyria took and destroyed the city in 712/11 BCE through his chief of staff (turtanu, Isaiah 20:1). According to Herodotus (2.157), the Egyptian Pharaoh PSAMMETICHUS I besieged Azotus, “a great city of SYRIA,” for twenty‐nine years (presumably not consecutively), until he took it (c. 635). Herodotus adds that of all the known CITIES it held out the longest under a SIEGE (cf. Zephaniah 2:4). After the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured the city in 604, it was rebuilt by the Persians in 539.