Bible Lands

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“Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,

and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,

for my people who have sought me.

(Isaiah 65:10)

The image that flashes to mind when the Bible speaks of the Sharon^a is a fertile, lush plain where browsing flocks eat their fill and become fat.

Five times the Bible refers to the Sharon, including twice more in the Book of Isaiah. In chapter 33 verse 9 the prophet describes what happens when God’s spirit leaves the land because of the transgressions of his people:

“The land mourns and languishes;

Lebanon is confounded and withers

away; Sharon is like a desert;

and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves” (33:9).

In Isaiah 35 we are told that those who seek God and who read from the book of the Lord shall possess the land:

“The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” (35:2).

King David, it is related in 1 Chronicles 27:29, appointed a special overseer, Shitrai the Sharonite, to care for the herds pastured in the Sharon (1 Chronicles 27:29).

Perhaps the most famous reference to the Sharon occurs in the Song of Songs, in which the exuberant lover declares: “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys” (2:1).

Although the Bible mentions the Sharon in all these instances, nowhere does it offer specific topographical descriptions like those we find for other regions. We are quite certain, for instance, that har means the hill country of Judah, that shephelah^b means the low foothills to the west of the Judean highlands, that negeb refers to the arid region around Beer-Sheva and to the south, that the arabah is the region between the Dead Sea and Eilat, that hof hayyam (haggadol) means the coastal plain, that midbar describes the wilderness of Judah, and that ashedot is the word for the slopes and cliffs on the western side of the Jordan Rift Valley.

In the geographical descriptions dealing with the conquest and the settlement, the Sharon, as a geographical region, is not mentioned, except once in Joshua 12:18 in connection with the king of Aphek of Sharon (la-Sharon). No geographical details are given, however, and nowhere, there or elsewhere, is the specific geographical area designated by the name Sharon delineated, even in a general way.

Even the origin of the name Sharon is uncertain. Some have suggested that the Sea Peoples who settled at Dor in the 13th century B.C. brought with them the archaic Greek word nape, which means “a forest in the plain.” The archaic Greek word became napha; the Old Semitic equivalent of this word was sharon, which meant “a forest in the plain,” as distinguished from horsha, which meant “a forest in the hills.” Thus, the name Naphat-Dor (1 Kings 4:11) could be understood as “Dor of the Sharon,” that is “Dor of the forest in the plain”; similarly, Aphek of the Sharon (Joshua 12:18) could be understood as “Aphek of the forest of the plain.”¹ The “forest” in these phrases must be understood not as tall trees, but as low, maquis-type vegetation, typical of the region.

Another possible explanation of the name Sharon is that it is derived from the Hebrew word yashar, meaning “straight” or “level,” an allusion to the flatness of the region.

Most of what we know about the boundaries of the Sharon comes from the location of sites mentioned in the biblical record. The boundaries are not described precisely but are postulated from the topographical nature of this region. Sharon is understood as the northern part of the coastal plain of ancient Israel; the southern part is called Philistia. The Sharon extends from the mountainous mass of the Carmel in the north that essentially squeezes off the coastal plain to the Yarkon River in the south. The northern part of the Sharon includes the Plain of Dor. Several rivers flow from the hill country through the Sharon to the Mediterranean; these rivers are known today as the Poleg, Alexander, Hadera and Tanninim (Crocodiles). To the east the Sharon is bordered by the hill country assigned by Joshua to Ephraim and Manasseh (Joshua 16–17). Today this region is part of Samaria.

The Sharon coast is straight, interrupted only by two small natural harbors, one at Dor serving the north, and the other at Jaffa receiving trade 041from the hill country of Judah. (Jaffa, although outside the southern boundary of the Yarkon River, is considered a port of the Sharon.)

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Until recently large parts of the Sharon were quite marshy. (Its red-brown Mousterian sand tends to hold water and the chain of low kurkar [a sandstone rock] hills along the coast prevent drainage.) In antiquity, the Sharon was suitable mostly for grazing; however the marshy areas along the rivers, especially where the rivers opened to the sea, were not suitable for any kind of agriculture. This situation changed at the beginning of the 20th century; with Herculean efforts, Jews returning to the land drained the swamps, eliminating mosquitoes and malaria, in order to prepare and clear the area for large-scale agriculture.

Clinging to the dryer foothills of the eastern Sharon, the ancient “Way of the Sea”—the Via Maris—passed through the region, connecting Egypt with the Syrian and Mesopotamian cities far to the north and east Throughout history, armies have moved along the Via Maris seeking to control this land bridge and the kingdoms at either end. North of the Plain of Sharon the Via Maris splits into several branches. The westernmost continues north to Phoenicia; the main eastern branch passes by Megiddo, continues through the Valley of Jezreel and from there winds northeastward.

Our knowledge of the cities of the Sharon comes mainly from extra-biblical records. Preserved in the 15th century B.C. annals of Pharaoh Thutmoses III is a list of the cities he went through, including several in the Sharon. Amenhotep II, son of Thutmoses III, describes the Sharon in the record of his second campaign against Retenu (Canaan) in about 1428 B.C. The account relates that

“his majesty proceeded to Retenu on his second victorious campaign, against the town of Aphek. It came out in surrender to the great victory of Pharaoh—life, prosperity, health! His majesty went forth by chariot, adorned with weapons of warfare, against the town of Yekhem. Now his majesty captured the settlements of Mepesen, together with the settlements of Khettjen, two towns on the west of Socho.”²

On a cuneiform tablet from the el Amarna period (14th century B.C.) we learn that Labayu, king of Shechem, controlled the Sharon. The first mention of the harbor city of Dor occurs on a stela erected by Rameses II describing his military campaign against Canaan in about 1281 B.C. This stela was found in the city of Beth-Shean, in the Jordan Valley, well to the east of the Sharon.

The Book of Joshua details the inheritances the people of Israel received in the land of Canaan. The territory of Manasseh is said to include “the inhabitants of Dor and its villages” (Joshua 17:11) from which we may assume that part of the Sharon was allotted to Manasseh. But we learn in Judges 1:27 that Manasseh “did not drive out the inhabitants of Dor and its villages; but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land.” Only during the time of King David, about 1000 B.C., did the entire Sharon region come under Israelite domination. Solomon, who followed David, reorganized the kingdom and established an administrative structure that included 12 districts, each responsible to “provide food for the king and his household… one month in a year” (1 Kings 4:8). Ben-Khesed, who was in Arubboth, also controlled Socho and all the land of Hepher, namely the southern part of the Sharon. Ben-abinadab, who was married to Solomon’s daughter Taphath, was stationed in Naphat-Dor, the northern part of the Sharon.

In 922 B.C. the kingdom was divided in two: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The Sharon became part of the northern kingdom. In 733/732 B.C., a military campaign mounted by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, succeeded in splitting off a large area from Israel. The area now controlled by Tiglath-Pileser was divided into three provinces, one of which was the Sharon with its capital, Dor.

The northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. The Sharon was then 043incorporated into the larger Assyrian province of Samerina.

But that was not the end of Sharon’s shifting fortunes. Control over Israel passed to the Persians in 536 B.C. The Persian government gave “Dor and Joppa [Jaffa], the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon”³ to Eshmunezer, king of Phoenicia.

In recent years several of the major ancient cities of the Sharon have been identified and excavated. These include Aphek, Dor and Tell Qasile.

As noted earlier, a key city on the Via Maris, Aphek stands at the headwaters of the Yarkon River, which flows perennially from the hill country to the Mediterranean. Anyone passing along the north-south route of the Via Maris had either to cross the Yarkon or to circumvent Aphek. By controlling this area between the Yarkon and the hill country, Aphek dominated the region, a fact that accounts for its name being mentioned in numerous historical records of war and commerce. The earliest city at this site was founded in the Early Bronze Age (3100–2000 B.C.); Aphek continued as an important city throughout the Middle (2000–1500 B.C.) and Late (1500–1200 B.C.) Bronze Ages, the Israelite period (1200–586 B.C.) and the Roman period (37 B.C.–300 A.D.). Today the feature that dominates the site is a 17th-century Turkish fortress, set in an archaeological park.

Nearby, two miles to the east of Aphek, is Izbet Sartah, identified by some scholars as Ebenezer.⁴ One of the most critical battles in early Israelite history, between the Israelites and the Philistines, was fought here about 1050 B.C. At that time, the Bible tells us, the 12 tribes had settled the land, and the Ark of the Covenant had been installed at Shiloh under the authority of Eli the Priest. The Book of Judges makes clear that not all the land allotted by God to the Israelites had been occupied by them. Canaanite enclaves remained. But the principal problem for the Israelites was the encroaching power of the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal region from Gaza north to the Yarkon River.

The conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines exploded into battle in the Sharon Plain. The battle is described in detail in 1 Samuel 4. The Israelites mustered at Ebenezer in the low hills bordering the coastal plain on the east. The Philistines camped at Aphek. The armies met in the Sharon plain. In the initial skirmish, the Philistines defeated the Israelites, killing 4,000 men. In desperation the Israelites sent to Shiloh⁵ to have the Ark of the Covenant brought to them to lead them in battle. But in the battle that followed, the Israelites were again defeated; 30,000 Israelites were killed, and the Philistines captured the Ark.

Israel was in disarray. Threatened by the possibility of total Philistine control, the Israelites adopted their first centralized government; Samuel, the priest and prophet of the Lord, anointed Saul as king of Israel.

After Aphek, Dor was the second major city of the Sharon. Founded in the Late Bronze II period (1500–1200 B.C.), Dor was settled about 1100 B.C. by the Tjeker, one of the Sea Peoples: Today a major excavation is taking place at Dor under the direction of Hebrew University professor Ephraim Stem. The excavations reveal that Dor was a major Phoenician city, strongly fortified in the Iron II period (900–600 B.C.).

Another prominent site located in the Sharon is Tell Qasile, situated on the north shore of the Yarkon River near the modern highway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. The earliest settlement at Qasile was built by the Philistines and features a series of temples, one on top of the other.

During the Herodian period (37–4 B.C.) a large harbor city was built at Caesarea on the Sharon coast. Caesarea became one of the centers of Roman Palestine and a major trading city for goods from the western Mediterranean. Caesarea figured prominently in a number of New Testament events. Peter preached there at the house of Cornelius, the converted centurion (Acts 10). Paul traveled to Caesarea by sea from Ephesus at the end of his second missionary Journey (Acts 18:22). After Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem, he was imprisoned for two years in Herod’s palace in Caesarea. Following Paul’s appeal to Caesar, Paul was sent to Rome by ship from the Caesarea harbor (Acts 23–27).

In the 11th century the Crusaders came to the Holy Land to conquer it for Christianity. They too left their mark on the Sharon, as had so many before them. Forts and ports were built by the Crusaders along the coast—at Caesarea, at Atlit and Arsuf.

In antiquity the agricultural potential of the Sharon was not exploited. But in the beginning of the 20th century when Jewish pioneers drained the marshes, the Sharon became one of Israel’s important agricultural regions. Oranges and vegetables flourish today in the rich soil of the Sharon— enhancing Isaiah’s vision of the verdant Sharon as a symbol of hope and restoration.

“Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,