Did the Canaanites Really Have Iron Chariots?

As Israel spread through the Promised Land, she faced Canaanite kings whose armies had “iron chariots” (rekeb barzel) (Joshua 17:16, 18; Judges 1:19, 4:3, 13). As recently as 1983, one commentator has told us, “It is historically highly improbable… that the Canaanaites were equipped with iron chariots before the end of the second millennium B.C.”¹

But the archaeological evidence is clearly to the contrary. The biblical text does not require us to suppose that the Canaanite chariots were wholly iron, but only that they were strengthened with it, as several commentators have realized² But as the evidence in the accompanying article shows, iron was sufficiently available in the Late Bronze Age to make iron-plated chariots plausible.