Who and what is…
Eglon

Hebrew: עֶגְלוֹן —transliteration: Eglown or Eglon —meaning: the bullock; place of heifers —occurrences: 13 in Joshua and Judges

This is the name of a biblical king and a city…

  1. Eglon, king of a Moabite tribe

    This man is mentioned in the book of Judges that God used to punish Israel due to their evil deeds.

    Having entered into an alliance with Ammon and Amalek, Eglon then overran the trans-Jordanic region, and then crossing the Jordan River, seized Jericho, “the city of palm trees,” which had been by this time rebuilt, but not as a fortress.

    Eglon made this city his capital, and kept Israel in subjection for 18 years. The people at length “cried unto the Lord” in their distress, and he “raised them up a deliverer” in Ehud, the son of Gera, a Benjamite.

    See: Judges 3:12-14 (“the sons of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab 18 years”)

  2. Eglon, a city-state

    This Canaanite city-state was located near Lachish (Joshua 15:39). One of its kings was Debir. He joined a confederation against Gibeon when that city made peace with Israel. As a result the 5 kings involved were killed.

    It was destroyed by Joshua (Joshua 10:5-6).

    This place become part of the territory of the Tribe of Judah.

    Archaeologists have identified the probable site of this city as Tel 'Eton (תל עיטון, aka Tel Aaton and Khirbat Aitun), located in the Telam Valley, near Nahal Adoraim in the southeast of the Judean Lowlands, near Moshav Shekef. The tel’s current name comes from the nearby village that was inhabited between the Byzantine period to the Arab period, Kharbat Eyton.

    Tel Aton (Tel Eton) in Israel—satellite view

    The area also contains many hundreds of burial caves.

    Eglon was transformed in the 10th century BC. Archaeologists have found some of the structures built at this site display fine masonry—cut and dressed stonework (ashlar) made using a chisel and leaving very thin joints between blocks. Prior to these findings at Tel Eton (Tel Aton), the lack of ashlar construction in this period in the region of Judah was an “oftquoted evidence against the historical plausibility of a kingdom centered in Judah”.1

    The archaeological study here shows that the primary city in this tel, was one of the largest in the Kingdom of Judah.2

    1. Avraham Faust and Yair Sapir. “The ‘Governor’s Residency’ at Tel ‘Eton, the united monarchy, and the impact of the old-house effect on large-scale archaeological reconstructions,” Radiocarbon, 60.3 (2018), pp. 801-820.
    2. William F. Albright, “The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim, Vol. II: The Bronze Age,” The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. XVII (1936-1937).

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Article Version: September 20, 2024