Lachish
    impregnable, a royal Canaanitish city in the Shephelah, or
    maritime plain of Palestine (Josh. 10:3, 5; 12:11). It was taken
    and destroyed by the Israelites (Josh. 10:31-33). It afterwards
    became, under Rehoboam, one of the strongest fortresses of Judah
    (2 Chr. 10:9). It was assaulted and probably taken by
    Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:14, 17; 19:8; Isa. 36:2). An account of
    this siege is given on some slabs found in the chambers of the
    palace of Koyunjik, and now in the British Museum. The
    inscription has been deciphered as follows:, "Sennacherib, the
    mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the
    throne of judgment before the city of Lachish: I gave permission
    for its slaughter." (See NINEVEH.)

      Lachish has been identified with Tell-el-Hesy, where a
    cuneiform tablet has been found, containing a letter supposed to
    be from Amenophis at Amarna in reply to one of the Amarna
    tablets sent by Zimrida from Lachish. This letter is from the
    chief of Atim (=Etam, 1 Chr. 4:32) to the chief of Lachish, in
    which the writer expresses great alarm at the approach of
    marauders from the Hebron hills. "They have entered the land,"
    he says, "to lay waste...strong is he who has come down. He lays
    waste." This letter shows that "the communication by tablets in
    cuneiform script was not only usual in writing to Egypt, but in
    the internal correspondence of the country. The letter, though
    not so important in some ways as the Moabite stone and the
    Siloam text, is one of the most valuable discoveries ever made
    in Palestine" (Conder's Tell Amarna Tablets, p. 134).

      Excavations at Lachish are still going on, and among other
    discoveries is that of an iron blast-furnace, with slag and
    ashes, which is supposed to have existed B.C. 1500. If the
    theories of experts are correct, the use of the hot-air blast
    instead of cold air (an improvement in iron manufacture patented
    by Neilson in 1828) was known fifteen hundred years before
    Christ. (See FURNACE.)



 Lachish, who walks, or exists, of himself