Helech
Helech is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey. Known today as Tarsus. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Helech appears in Ezekiel 27:11 within the lamentation over Tyre, where it is listed alongside Arvad and Gammad as contributors of soldiers to Tyre's military garrison: 'The men of Arvad and Helech were on your walls all around, and the men of Gammad were in your towers.' The name has presented significant challenges to biblical interpreters, with some manuscripts and translations rendering it differently. A widely accepted identification connects Helech with Cilicia, the coastal region of southeastern Asia Minor, corresponding to modern Tarsus and its surroundings in Turkey. Cilician soldiers were known as capable mercenaries throughout the ancient Near East, and their service in Phoenician garrisons fits the broader pattern of Tyre's cosmopolitan military recruitment described in Ezekiel 27. This identification places Helech within the network of Aegean and Anatolian peoples who intersected with Levantine commercial culture during the Iron Age. The reference illustrates Tyre's far-reaching military and commercial connections stretching from Arabia to the coasts of Asia Minor.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
If Helech is identified with Cilicia, the corresponding modern location is the Cilician plain centered on Tarsus in southern Turkey. Tarsus itself has been excavated and occupied continuously from the Neolithic period through the classical era. The region is attested in Assyrian records as Que or Hilakku, which some scholars connect linguistically with Helech. Iron Age Cilicia maintained active commercial and military relationships with Phoenician cities, consistent with Ezekiel's description. The identification remains debated, with some scholars preferring a closer Levantine location. The broader Cilician plain has yielded Iron Age II material culture consistent with the period of Ezekiel's writing.
Verse Appearances (1)
Ezek
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]