pool of gibeon: sacred swords

It was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which was the most dramatic of many discoveries which threw light on the beginnings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is worth emphasizing that in all this work to date of digging and analysis that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single, properly understood Biblical statement. The relationship of even isolated historical allusions in the Bible to archaeological finds in the Holy Land has be borne out since the beginning for example:

There is a reference  in II Samuel to “the pool of Gibeon,” by the side of which a bloody gladiatorial contest took place between adherents of Joab and Abner, who were mortal enemies. These two were commanding generals, respectively of the army of David, who had just been crowned king of Judah, and of the army of Saul’s pathetic son, Ish-bosheth. The latter, after his father and his brothers had met their deaths in the disastrous battle of Gilboa between the Philistines and the Israelites, remained the sole obstacle in the path of David’s becoming king also of Israel and the head of what subsequently developed under him into the United Kingdom of Judah and Israel. The pertinent passages read as follows:…

---The conquest of the land was completed during the lifetime of Joshua (11:23; 21:43-45), but they did not drive out all the inhabitants, as commanded by God, in his lifetime, nor in the immediate years following his death. It was not until the time of David that possession of the land also included control of its inhabitants.---click image for source...

—The conquest of the land was completed during the lifetime of Joshua (11:23; 21:43-45), but they did not drive out all the inhabitants, as commanded by God, in his lifetime, nor in the immediate years following his death. It was not until the time of David that possession of the land also included control of its inhabitants.—click image for source…

And Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.

13 And Joab the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went out; and they met together by the pool of Gibeon, and sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool.

14 And Abner said to Joab: ‘Let the young men, I pray thee, arise and play before us.’ And Joab said: ‘Let them arise.’

15 Then they arose and passed over by number: twelve for Benjamin, and for Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David.

16 And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together; wherefore that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is in Gibeon.

17 And the battle was very sore that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the servants of David.

--- Title: Artist: Location: Orig. Size: SKU: Nathan admonishes King David 1683 Aert de Gelder---click image for source...


Nathan admonishes King David 1683
Aert de Gelder—click image for source…

We owe the survival of this account to the Biblical writers’ preoccupation with David and his role in Israelitic history. As the gifted leader of his people, the progenitor of its noblest str

who had been brought low and was penitent, David was one of the great heroes of the Biblical narrative. No detail was too small to be included in his spiritual biography. David and his household would become God’s chosen instrument and the Bible followed his progress through sin and suffering, though conquest and cupidity, through arrogance and humility, all his lifelong days as described in Samuel.

---David Playing the Harp Ahead of the Ark, Jan de Bray, 1670     And it was told King David, “The LORD has blessed the household of O’bed-e’dom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of O’bed-e’dom to the city of David with rejoicing; and when those who bore the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the horn. — 2 Samuel 6:12-15---click image for source...

—David Playing the Harp Ahead of the Ark, Jan de Bray, 1670
And it was told King David, “The LORD has blessed the household of O’bed-e’dom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of O’bed-e’dom to the city of David with rejoicing; and when those who bore the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the horn. — 2 Samuel 6:12-15—click image for source…

It seems beyond belief that the account of the struggle at Gibeon should have survived in such detail for generations before it was written down; but the plausibility is enhanced when one considers the transmission of history among modern Bedouins whose fabled raconteurs were known to recite, with the rhythm of poetry, and in minute detail,events of their own time and their ancestors’ with hardly a hairsbreadth of difference in the description of a fight, a feast, a birth, or a death. ( to be continued)…

ADDENDUM:

(see link at end)… James Pritchard conducted an exploration of this site from 1956 to 1962. He discovered 31 jar handles bearing the Hebrew name Gibeon, which confirmed the site. Early in his search archaeologist Pritchard located a round water shaft, 37 feet in diameter, that led to a pool used by the city. This shaft, comments Biblical Archaeology Review, “was cut into the limestone bedrock to a depth of over 82 feet. Also cut into the limestone are a staircase and railing, which wind down to a level floor about halfway to the bottom of the shaft. From there, the stairs drop straight down another 45 feet-to the level of the water table” (May-June 1995, p. 43).

In the same issue archaeologist Bryant Wood concludes: “A large pool at Gibeon is no doubt the pool where the forces of Israel’s second king, David, fought under Joab against the forces of Saul’s son Ishbosheth under Abner” .

This find was listed by Biblical Archaeology Review as one of the top 10 discoveries in biblical archaeology. It reveals yet another example of the accuracy of even the incidental details of the biblical account.Read More:http://www.ucg.org/science/bible-and-archaeology-battle-pool-gibeon/

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