Ashkelon, on Israel’s southern Mediterranean coast, offers rich array of biblical and historical vestiges in a beautiful beach setting.

It was here that Samson struck down 30 Philistines, taking their clothing to pay the thirty companions who solved a riddle he proposed at his wedding (Judges 14:11-19).
As one of the five Philistine cities, Ashkelon is also mentioned in the eulogy of David for Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:20).

Early Ashkelon was located on the Via Maris, the road linking Egypt with Assyria. It grew in the Roman period, and later, during the Byzantine Christian era it thrived as a commercial center for agricultural produce. In fact, the word scallion comes from the special onion first grown and exported from this region!

Ashkelon National Park contains the oldest arch in the world, dating from around 1850 BCE, the remains of a shrine to the Canaanite calf-deity Ba’al, Roman colonnades and statues, Crusader walls, and a fine beach and picnic area.

Joshua 13

1 Now Joshua was old and advanced in years; and the Lord said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remains: all the regions of the Philistines, and all those of the Geshurites 3 (from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron, it is reckoned as Canaanite; there are five rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron), and those of the Avvim, 4 in the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah which belongs to the Sidonians, to Aphek, to the boundary of the Amorites, 5 and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baal-gad below Mount Hermon to the entrance of Hamath, 6 all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, even all the Sidonians. I will myself drive them out from before the people of Israel; only allot the land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded you. 7 Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh.

The Revised Standard Version, (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.) 1973, 1977.