Aphek

Aphek is the name of more than one site in the Old Testament — a town in the hill country of Asher, a city in the plain of Issachar near Jezreel, and a city east of the Jordan in Aramean territory. The narrative weight of the name falls on its battlefields: Israel loses the ark to the Philistines at Aphek, the Philistines marshal there for the campaign in which Saul falls, and Ben-hadad's Syrians are crushed there a generation later.

A Town in Asher

In the allotment of the tribe of Asher, Aphek appears in a list of twenty-two cities along the coastal plain: "Acco also, and Aphek, and Rehob: twenty and two cities with their villages" (Jos 19:30). The Asherite inheritance is more catalogue than conquest, however. Judges records that the tribe could not dislodge the Canaanite population, and the same town — spelled Aphik — appears in that list of failures: "Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob" (Jdg 1:31). The site is inherited on paper but not held in fact.

A Royal Canaanite City

The catalogue of kings whom Joshua defeated west of the Jordan also names Aphek: "the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one" (Jos 12:18). This Aphek — most likely the inland city in the plain of Sharon associated later with Israelite-Philistine warfare — was once a Canaanite seat of royal power, brought under Israel through Joshua's campaigns.

The Loss of the Ark

The first of the great defeats at Aphek opens 1 Samuel 4. Israel encamps at Eben-ezer and the Philistines at Aphek (1Sa 4:1). The first day's fighting costs Israel about four thousand men (1Sa 4:2). The elders respond by fetching the ark of the covenant from Shiloh, hoping its presence will deliver them: "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of Shiloh to us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies" (1Sa 4:3). Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, accompany the ark into the camp (1Sa 4:4).

The Philistines react first with fear — "God has come into the camp" (1Sa 4:7) — and recall the plagues against Egypt: "Who will deliver us out of the hand of [the Speech of] these majestic gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with all manner of plagues in the wilderness" (1Sa 4:8). They steel themselves and fight, and the disaster is total: "Israel was struck, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain" (1Sa 4:10-11). Aphek is where presence-by-talisman fails. The ark is taken; the priestly house of Eli ends in a single afternoon.

The Muster Before Mount Gilboa

Aphek reappears as the staging-ground for the campaign that ends Saul's reign: "Now the Philistines gathered together all their hosts to Aphek: and the Israelites encamped by the fountain which is in Jezreel" (1Sa 29:1). The battle itself is fought farther north, on the slopes of Gilboa, but the Philistine line of advance begins at Aphek.

Ben-hadad in the Valley

A century and more later, Aphek becomes the scene of a Syrian disaster. Ben-hadad, after a defeat the previous year, regathers his army and brings it up to Aphek to renew the fight against Israel: "And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Ben-hadad mustered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel" (1Ki 20:26). Israel's army is small by comparison — "the sons of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of young goats; but the Syrians filled the country" (1Ki 20:27) — and the Syrian boast that frames the engagement is theological: "Yahweh is a god of the hills, but he is not a god of the valleys" (1Ki 20:28). The prophetic word of Yahweh answers in kind: "therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you⁺ will know that I am Yahweh" (1Ki 20:28).

After a seven-day standoff the battle is joined. The Syrians lose a hundred thousand footmen in a single day (1Ki 20:29). The survivors flee into the city of Aphek itself, where the wall collapses on twenty-seven thousand more, and Ben-hadad takes refuge "into an inner chamber" (1Ki 20:30). What had been a Syrian rallying-point becomes a Syrian graveyard.