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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Gezer
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("cut off," i.e. "isolated".) An old Canaanite city, whose king, Horam or Elam, helping Lachish, was slain with his people by Joshua (; ). A landmark of Ephraim, between lower Beth-horon and the Mediterranean (), on the S.W. border (). Now Tell el Djezir near Abou Shusheh (Ganneau). Allotted to the Kohathite Levites (; ). At a short distance from Tel el Djezir, on the E. side, engraved on a horizontal rock, is a bilingual Greek and Hebrew inscription marking the limit of Gezer () as a Levitical city with its portion without the city.
The inscription is at least as old as one century B.C.; also a second similar inscription exists on the N.W. Thus the sacred boundary was a square, having its four angles at the four cardinal points (Ganneau). The original inhabitants remained and paid tribute to Israel (; -17). It must have been independent when Pharaoh slew the Canaanite inhabitants, burnt the city, and gave it a present to his daughter, Solomon's wife. Solomon rebuilt it. Gob is identified with it ; compare . It lay in the maritime plain, on the coast road to Egypt, an important post to fortify as it lay between Egypt and Jerusalem
It is the last point to which David pursued the Philistines (; ). Being 50 miles distant from "the S. of Judah ... and the Kenites," it cannot be meant in . (See GERZITES.) The inscription in the rock discovered by Ganneau, "the boundary of Gezer," verifies the conjecture that Abou Shusheh on the plain between Jaffa and Jerusalem is the site of Gezer The discovery of the limit outside the city probably defines "a sabbath day's journey."