Ashdod (אַשְׁדּוֹד; إسدود, Isdud) is a city in the Southern District of Israel located towards the south of the Israeli Coastal Plain about 70km from both Jerusalem and Beer Sheba. Its jurisdiction is 60,000 dunams (60 km²). It was declared a city in 1968 and today is an important industrial center in the country, particularly because the city's port, the Port of Ashdod is Israel's largest port accounting for 60% of imported goods. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Ashdod had a population of about 204.400 at the end of 2006 making it the fifth largest city in Israel.

History

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Ancient Ashdod
Human settlement in the area now known as Ashdod was first recorded and believed to have happened during the Paleolithic Age. During all three Stone Ages there was much human activity, and the settlement is even mentioned in Ugaritic documents. At the end of the 13th century BCE the Sea Peoples conquered the city and destroyed it. The city was taken over by the Philistines (who are generally thought to have been one of the Sea Peoples) at the beginning of the 12th century BCE. During the years they reigned over Ashdod, the city prospered and was said to have become their capital.

In 950 BCE Ashdod was destroyed in the conquering journey of Pharaoh Siamun; the city was rehabilitated after 815BCE. A hundred years later, it was conquered by Sargon II who destroyed the city and exiled its residents. Asdûdu led the revolt of Philistines, Judeans, Edomites, and Moabites against Assyria after expelling the king Akhimeti, whom Sargon had installed instead of his brother Azuri. Gath (Gimtu) belonged to the kingdom of Ashdod at that time.

An Assyrian general titled Tartan, subjected Ashdod in 711 (cf. Isaiah 20:1), and the usurper, Yawani, fled. Mitinti was king in the time of Sennacherib; Akhimilki in the reign of Esarhaddon. Psammetichus of Egypt is reported to have besieged the great city Azotus for twenty-nine years (Herodotus, ii. 157); the biblical references to the remnant of Ashdod (Jeremiah 25:20; cf Zephaniah 2:4) are interpreted as an allusion to this event.

The city absorbed another blow in 605 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar conquered it. In 539 BCE the city had been rehabilitated by the Persians, but was conquered in the wars of Alexander of Macedon, when its name was changed into Izotus.

In the Book of Nehemiah (at 4:1, 13:23, etc.), the Ashdodites seem still to represent the whole nation of the Philistines, so that 13:24, the speech of Ashdod (which the younger generation of the Jews are described as adopting), would simply be the general Philistine dialect. Winckler ("Gesch. Israels", p. 224) explains the use of that name by the fact that Ashdod was the nearest of the Philistine cities to Jerusalem; yet the simplest explanation seems to remain that Ashdod remained the leader among previously Philistine cities, even into Greek times.

The city prospered as Izotus under the Hellenist rule, until the Hasmonean Revolt. During the rebellion Judas Maccabeus arrived at its...