The War-torn History of Hazor —

Extensive archaeological work has gone on at Hazor (Yigael Yadin 1955-58, 1968-69. Amnon Ben Tor 1990-present). Its upper tel boasts an ancient acropolis of 30 acres, that from a bird’s eye view looks bottle shaped. Remnants of the Israelite city of Solomon that flourished for about 200 years include fortifications, a tower, homes, a water system and a six chambered gate. Under this Israelite city was found evidence of the old Canaanite city. Some of the finds from this time include a Canaanite temple that was found underneath Solomon’s gate complex, a section of the city wall and its corresponding moat, several Egyptian statues, a monumental basalt staircase and a large “ceremonial palace”.

All experts agree that this Canaanite city was destroyed and set on fire: A thick layer of ancient ash attests to it. Inside the palace, whose walls still stand 6.5 feet high, the ferocity of the fire was discovered. Based off of melted clay vessels and vitrified mudbricks, that is mudbricks that have begun to transform into glass, the current excavator has determined that the fire was twice the temperature of a regular fire.[1] Likely due to the building materials, storerooms of nearly a thousand gallons of oil and the winds in the area. The palace also yielded two bronze statues (1 king, 1 god), a large basalt statue (god), a jewelry box, weapons, and a lion shaped ceremonial drinking cup. Peculiar to this destruction of Hazor is that the targeted areas were public and religious buildings, and that the destroyers purposefully disfigured images and statues of kings and gods (i.e., cut off their heads and hands).

This perfectly aligns with a destruction by the Israelites as outlined in the Bible. Most scholars align it with the destruction in Joshua 11 (around 1400BC), but based off of the date of about 1250-1200BC, this would align it well with a destruction by Deborah and Barak in Judges 4 (around 1200BC).

What’s In a Name?

A careful reader will note that the name of the king of Hazor is the same in the accounts of Joshua 11 and Judges 4: Jabin, king of Hazor. On the surface, this seems to add evidence to the theory that these events should be understood as one in the same, even though Biblically they are separated by over 100 years.

Scholar Douglas Petrovich has convincingly argued that Jabin should be understood as a dynastic title. A name that was given to many kings of Hazor, added into their longer names as a claim to be in the line of legitmate kings of Hazor. This can be seen to have similarities to the title “Pharaoh” in ancient Egypt.[2]