Lachish was one of the most important cities of the kingdom of Judah, surpassed in size and fortification only by Jerusalem.
It lay in the Shephelah, the belt of hills between the coastal plain and the mountains of Judea, at a strategic point that guarded the approach to Jerusalem from the southwest.
Before the Israelite conquest it was a Canaanite city state, ruled by its own king. Joshua besieged it and captured it.
Later, as a city of Judah, Rehoboam fortified it to protect the newly divided kingdom.
Lachish witnessed two of the most dramatic moments in the history of Judah: the death of King Amaziah, pursued there and killed, and the brutal siege of Sennacherib in 701 BC, documented in detail in the Assyrian reliefs.
Decades later it was one of the last cities to resist the Babylonian army, alongside Azekah, shortly before the fall of Jerusalem.
The prophet Micah called the city the beginning of sin for Judah, linking its military strength to a confidence that had turned away from God.
