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City of Palms

cityOld TestamentJudea3 verses
Today Tell es SultanCountry IsraelCoordinates 31.872, 35.445

City of Palms is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Tell es Sultan. It appears across 3 verses in Scripture.

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Archaeological Data
Occupation Phases
Early Bronze Age IA3800 BCE – 3300 BCE
Early Bronze Age IB3300 BCE – 3050 BCE
Early Bronze Age II3050 BCE – 2850 BCE
Early Bronze Age III2850 BCE – 2500 BCE
Early Bronze Age IV/Middle Bronze Age I/Int. Bronze2500 BCE – 2000 BCE
Middle Bronze Age I2000 BCE – 1750 BCE
Middle Bronze Age II-III1750 BCE – 1550 BCE
Late Bronze Age I1550 BCE – 1400 BCE
Late Bronze Age II1400 BCE – 1200 BCE
Late Bronze Age III1200 BCE – 1150 BCE
Iron Age I1150 BCE – 980 BCE
Iron Age IIa980 BCE – 830 BCE
Iron Age IIb830 BCE – 720 BCE
Iron Age IIc720 BCE – 539 BCE
Iron Age III (Persian)539 BCE – 333 BCE
Hellenistic333 BCE – 63 BCE
Roman63 BCE – 324 CE
Early Roman63 BCE – 70 CE
Late Roman70 CE – 324 CE
Byzantine324 CE – 638 CE
UnitoAssyrianGovernance, Villages to Empires Dataset (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732Uppsala University, ANE Site Placemarks (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.6384044

Biblical History

The City of Palms is a well-known biblical designation for Jericho, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It first appears in the narrative of the Israelite conquest when Eglon, king of Moab, captured it and oppressed Israel for eighteen years (Judges 3:13). After Ehud's deliverance of Israel, the land had rest for eighty years. The city is referenced again in 2 Chronicles 28:15, where Israelite soldiers who had taken Judean captives released them at the City of Palms. Jericho's abundant palm trees, a defining feature of this well-watered oasis in the arid Jordan Valley, gave rise to the epithet. The city stands as a powerful symbol of God's faithfulness: it was at Jericho that Joshua led Israel in the miraculous conquest described in Joshua 6, where the walls fell at the blowing of trumpets. Its recurrence throughout the Old Testament underscores its strategic importance as a gateway city into the Promised Land.

Archaeological & Historical Notes

Identified with Tell es-Sultan near modern Jericho, this site is one of the most excavated in the ancient Near East. British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon's mid-twentieth century excavations revealed continuous occupation stretching back to at least 9000 BC, making it among the world's oldest cities. Remains of massive mudbrick walls and towers from the Neolithic period were uncovered, along with Bronze Age and Iron Age occupation layers. The famous Elisha's Spring (Ein es-Sultan) near the tell has sustained settlement here for millennia. Archaeological evidence for the Late Bronze Age destruction layer, corresponding to Joshua's conquest, remains a subject of scholarly debate.

Verse Appearances (3)

References

  1. Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
  2. OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
  3. Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
  4. Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
  5. Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
  6. Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]

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