Inside BAR

It was a perfect match: King Solomon provided the labor and access to the Red Sea, and the Phoenician ruler Hiram offered his people’s sailing skills and Cedars of Lebanon with which to build ships. Together they created a mighty Israelite naval force based at “Ezion-Geber which is near Eloth” (2 Kings 9:26). But where was Ezion-Geber? The location of Solomon’s seaport has been a matter of scholarly debate for half a century, since 1938 when the American archaeologist and rabbi Nelson Glueck excavated Tell el-Kheleifeh, at the northern end of the Gulf of Eilat/Aqabah and identified it as Ezion-Geber. Glueck’s claim was eventually disproved, and the field opened to new candidates. In “Is This Solomon’s Seaport?” Alexander Flinder suggests an island gem as the Biblical port—picturesque Jezirat Faraun, in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqabah, a few miles south of modern Eilat. Flinder uses maritime and architectural clues, both above and below the water, to identify fortifications, an enclosed harbor and a natural anchorage between the island and the mainland.