The Migdal-gad Frontier Cluster in Judahs Second Shephelah District

Joshua 15:37-39 opens the catalog of Judah's second Shephelah district with the fortified watch-posts on the western frontier: "Zenan, and Hadashah, and Migdal-gad, And Dilean, and Mizpeh, and Joktheel, Lachish, and Bozkath, and Eglon." The cluster of tower-towns (Migdal-gad means "tower of Gad") commanded the strategic routes from the Judean highlands down to the Philistine coastal plain, marking the contested borderland that bore the brunt of every Philistine incursion in the judges and monarchy eras. Lachish anchored the cluster as the heavily-fortified military stronghold of the southwestern Shephelah.

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