ASHDOD ăsh’ dŏd, ASHDODITES ăsh’ dŏd īts, ASHDOTHITES (KJV, Josh 13:3) ăsh dŏ thīts (אַשְׁדֹּ֨וד, meaning possibly fortress; Apoc. and NT form ̓́Αζωτος, G111). One of the five important Philistine cities (cf. 1 Sam 6:17), located on or near the Mediterranean Sea, W of Jerusalem.

Ashdod was the farthest N of the three of these Philistine cities which were on or near the coast, being inland about three m. and about ten m. N of Ashkelon. Actually, by NT times there may have been two towns by the name of Azotus, for Josephus speaks of a coastal (Antiq. XIII. xv. 4) and an inland town by this name (Antiq. xiv. iv. 4; War I. vii. 7). Thus, at least in Christian times, there should prob. be distinguished a coastal Azotus (παράλιος ̓́Αζωτος) from an inland one (μεσόγειος A).

In the time of Israel’s conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua, Ashdod was inhabited by the ancient Anakim people (Josh 11:22) and was assigned to the tribe of Judah (15:46, 47) along with other Philistine towns (Ekron, Gaza, Josh 15:45-47; and Gath, Josh 11:22). However, Judah did not actually occupy it at that early time, since Joshua 13:1-3 indicates that the Philistines were still in possession of the area.

In the Israelite-Philistine struggles at the time of Eli the priest (1 Sam 1-4), Ashdod figured prominently as the place to which the victorious Philistines took the Israelite Ark of the covenant (ch. 5). When the image of their heathen god Dagon in his temple at Ashdod was humiliated before the Ark of the Lord, and many of the people died of serious illness, the captured sacred Ark was sent to other Philistine cities (5:1-12). After further suffering from the plague, the rulers of Ashdod and the other Philistine cities (Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron) sent the Ark back to Israel with a trespass offering of gold (6:1-18).

Ashdod does not seem to have been controlled by Judah until the days of Uzziah (c. 783-742 b.c.) when according to 2 Chronicles 26:6, this king of Judah, in fighting against the Philistines, conquered the city. Amos (c. 760-745 b.c.) no doubt included these events in his prophecy against Ashdod (Amos 1:8; 3:9).

Ashdod a little later had independence again for during the Assyrian hegemony, according to Assyrian annals, the town is said to have revolted in the time of Sargon II (721-705 b.c.). This uprising evidently took place about 711. According to his annals Sargon II ordered Azuri, the local king of Ashdod, deposed, and he set up a younger brother, Ahimiti, in his place. Then when the local townspeople whom Sargon calls Hittites (cf. the name Heth in the early history of Gen 27:46), under a self-appointed Gr. named Iamani (i.e., Ionian) or Iadna, continued the revolt, the Assyrian ruler marched on Ashdod, conquered it, and punished it and Gath and Ashdudimmu (meaning Ashdod by the Sea, a place which became more important later than inland Ashdod; cf. remarks above on two Ashdods in Christian times). Iamani, the Gr., fled to the territory of Musru which was under Ethiopia’s control. Ethiopia then surrendered the Gr. to the Assyrians. Thus Ashdod and the surrounding territory became Assyrian (ANET, 286). It was in the light of this background that Isaiah 20:1-6 warns Judah against getting involved with Ashdod, because Ethiopia would not support the cause against Assyria.

In the time of Sennacherib (704-681 b.c.) Ashdod, under a king named Mitinti, was still subject to Assyria, paid its tribute and was given some of the king of Judah’s (Hezekiah’s) towns. (ANET, 288). Another king of Ashdod, Ahumilki (or, Ahimilki) paid tribute to Esarhaddon (680-669 b.c.) (ANET, 291) and to Ashurbanipal (668-633 b.c.) as Assyria made campaigns against Egypt, Syria, and Palestine (ANET, 294). Further, Herodotus (II, 157) states that the Egyp. King Psammetichus I (663-610 b.c.) took Ashdod (he calls it Azotus) after a twenty-nine-year siege and later Nebuchadnezzar conquered Ashdod and took its king prisoner, whom he mentions as being at his Babylonian court (ANET, 308). Likely the Ashdod remnant left was that group prophesied about, at least in part, by Zephaniah (2:4) and Jeremiah (25:20), and whose descendants were no doubt a part of that group of Ashdodites who opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah (4:7) and from whom some Jews had taken heathen wives (Neh 13:23, 24). In the earlier days of Darius I (522-486 b.c.), Zechariah prophesied about the further degradation of Ashdod (Zech 7:1; 9:6).

Information about Azotus (as Ashdod was known from the Intertestamental Period on) under the Egyp. Ptolemaic and Syrian Seleucid kingdoms is meager, with the first diadochian (i.e., successors of Alexander the Great) periods, however, prob. being alluded to through superscriptions (Heb. in Gr. letters) on two Ashdod coins (see Schürer, II, i, 77). Evidence from the Books of the Maccabees in which there are frequent references to the Azotus district (1 Macc 14:34; 16:10), shows that the area succumbed to Jewish power, e.g. Judas destroyed its altars and images (1 Macc 5:68) and Jonathan burned the temple of Dagon and the city with fire (1 Macc 10:84; 11:4). Josephus relates that Azotus belonged to the Jewish region in the time of Alexander Jannaeus (c. 104-78 b.c.) (Antiq. XIII. xv. 4).

Subsequently Pompey rebuilt and repopulated Azotus and other cities of the whole area (Jos. Antiq. XIV. v. 4; War I. viii. 4), and later it was under Herod the Great’s control, who then willed it to his sister Salome (Jos. War II. vi. 3; Antiq. XVII. ii. 2; xi. 1); she in turn prob. willed it to the Empress Livia, the wife of Augustus (Jos. Antiq. XVIII. ii. 2; War II. ix. 2). There seems to have been a considerable Jewish population there in the 1st cent. a.d., because Vespasian placed a garrison there in the Jewish War before the fall of Jerusalem (Jos. War IV. iii. 2).

The only NT reference to Azotus is in Acts 8:40 where it is said Philip started his preaching mission up the coast to Caesarea.

Bibliography E. Schürer, A History of the Jewish People, sec. div., vol. I (1891), 76-79; F. M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine, II (1938), 253, 254; J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (1955), 284-308.