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Ashdod - location profile

Location and Setting

Situated ten miles north of Ashkelon on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Ashdod was one of the cities that formed the Philistine pentapolis. (The pentapolis was a league of five Philistine city-states which were allied for mutual economic, military and political benefit.)
Ashdod’s location on the International Coastal Highway that linked Egypt to Syria and Mesopotamia made it an important center for trade.

Ashdod was assigned to the tribe of Judah when the land was divided after the Conquest (Josh 15:47). However, Judah did not conquer the Philistines who lived there (Josh 13:3). The Anakites, a people of extraordinarily large stature, were among the Canaanite tribes that remained in Ashdod (Josh 11:22).
After the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant during the battle at Aphek, they brought it to Ashdod where they placed it in the temple of Dagon. On two consecutive mornings, the residents of Ashdod awoke to find that their idol of Dagon had fallen on its face before the Ark. When God brought a plague of tumors on the people of Ashdod, they sent the Ark on to the city of Gath (1 Sam 4:1-5:8).
Ashdod remained under Philistine control until King Uzziah of Judah conquered it in the eighth century B.C. (2 Chr 26:6).
By the first century A.D., the Romans had renamed the city Azotus. After baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip was carried away by the Spirit and "found himself at Azotus" (Acts 8:40).

Lockyer, Sr., Herbert, ed. Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1986.
Mare, W. H. "Ashdod" The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Ed. Merrill C. Tenney. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.
Smith, William. The New Smith’s Bible Dictionary. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.
Wiseman, D. J. "Ashdod" The New Bible Dictionary. 2^nd ed. Ed. J.D. Douglas. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982.