ASHDOD, an ancient village in Palestine, pop. c. 4,500, about 3m. inland from the Mediterranean and about equidistant (18m.) from Gaza and Jaffa. It is now on the railway. It stands close to a large hillock of red sand (137ft.), probably the Mt. Azotus on which Judas Maccabaeus fell (I. Macc. ix., 15ff.) ; this may well have been the acropolis of the ancient city. Be hind it extending to the shore cliffs lie dunes of sand under which in all probability are buried the remains of the Ashdod of old. At the southern entrance to the village are the ruins of a mediaeval khan, and amongst the houses and mosques are to be found fragments of ancient columns and walls.
Ashdod was the most important of the Philistine Confederation of five towns with a commanding position on the military road between Syria and Egypt and a centre of Dagon worship. In Joshua xv. it is assigned to Judah, but still remained the refuge of the 'Anakim (Josh. xi. 22). It does not appear that Israel ever subdued the city in spite of II. Chr. xxvi. 6. In 711 B.c., Ashdod was besieged by Sargon's army commander (or Tartan) and captured (Is. xx. I), the reason being that the city had revolted, set up a ruler of its own choosing in place of the Assyrian nominee, and had allied itself with Philistia, Judah, Edom, Moab and the Pharaoh of Egypt against Assyria. During Assurbanipal's reign (668-625 B.c.) it was beleaguered for 29 years by Psammetichus (Herod. ii. 157). Its inhabitants showed themselves hostile to the repair of the walls of Jerusalem at
time of the return (Neh. iv. 7), and Nehemiah's curse on the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and whose children could only speak a mixture of the two languages indicates the conditions prevailing in the city at that time (Neh. xiii. 23ff.). Ashdod was captured and cleared of idols by Judas Maccabaeus (c. 163 B.c.), and later (148) taken by Jonathan, who burned the temple of Dagon. After the Jewish wars it was restored by Gabinius and enfranchised by Pompey. From the 4th to the 6th centuries it was the seat of a bishopric. With the Muslim conquest it grad ually sank into insignificance until by crusading times the once mighty city had been transformed into a mean and squalid village.
