Goliath's Home City: The Hunt for Gath

Edward Robinson, a nineteenth-century scholar, proposed that Tell es-Safi was the Philistine city of Gath. That identification was generally accepted for a long time, until the early twentieth century, according to Wikipedia.

Scripture: A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out.

The verse names Goliath's city as Gath. The verses around it place the armies near Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and Azekah, with a valley between the two sides.

A word of honesty. The material I'm working from describes no Goliath inscription. So this is about the place itself, and what is documented there.

Gath was one of five Philistine cities in the Iron Age, the era of early iron tools, around three thousand years ago, in the northeast of Philistia near the border with Judah. Its name means wine press, and Egyptian inscriptions confirm that it existed.

Tell es-Safi was briefly excavated in 1899 by the American F. J. Bliss and the Irish archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister. A long-term project began in 1996, led by Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University.

One source places the archaeologist W. F. Albright's challenge in the 1950s. He disputed the link, and suggested Tell 'Areini instead. One blog says Israel's Government Names Committee renamed it Tel Gat in 1953.

The same blog says digs at Tell 'Areini from 1959 found no Middle Bronze Age traces, meaning no sign of settlement from an earlier era of bronze tools, and a third proposed site was dropped after 1980s excavations. Attention returned to Tell es-Safi.

A stone inscription disclosing the city's name has yet to be discovered. A tradition reported by Ishtori Haparchi and other early Jewish writers even placed Gath at Ramla. Tell es-Safi is the most favored site, but the sources describe it as thought to be Gath, not proven.

The mound lies in Tel Zafit National Park, in central Israel, about halfway between Jerusalem and Ashkelon. It is a large site with many periods, studied again since 1996.

What this offers the passage is setting: a real mound, the favored candidate for Gath, near the border with Judah. It says nothing directly about Goliath himself, and the identification remains a matter of scholarly judgment.

No stone inscription naming Gath has yet been found, but the search goes on. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Come back tomorrow for another find, and what we can honestly say about it.