Page 366 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1300-123° B-c-] The Exodus 313
in containing or destroying its Israeli garrison. To the princes
and elders of the coastal cities it appeared that the rule of the
invaders was tottering and, abandoning their policy of noninter­
vention in the affairs of the interior, they ordered out their
chariotry and infantry to assist the liberation movement. Many of
the sons and grandsons of the elders of Ascalon were among the
troops who guided their iron-tired chariots through the city gates
and, joining the regiments from Ashdod and Gaza, disappeared
across the plain towards the foothills.
The old men turned anxious eyes towards the hills in the
ensuing weeks. At first all went well, and news came back of
further liberations. But it was known that the nearest
Israeli tribal units, those of Judah and Simeon and Benjamin,
were gathering their forces for a counterattack. And one day the
first stragglers came back across the plain with news of the
disaster at Bezek. There the Canaanites and their mountain allies
had met the Israelis in open battle and had been defeated with
heavy losses.
On the coast hasty defenses were organized and new levies
recruited, as refugees came in from the hills from city after city
reconquered by the tribal armies. Finally came the news that
Jerusalem itself had fallen and that the Israelis were moving to­
wards the coast.
When Ascalon heard that Lachish to the southeast and
Ashdod to the north had fallen, the citizens knew that there was
no hope any more, and the evacuation began. From the little
harbor fishing vessels and coastal tramps and even the small
pleasure craft sailed for the north, crowded with women and
children and old men. Among them were such as still lived of the
men who had been children at the beginning of the century, and
they looked back with scarcely comprehending eyes at the stout
walls running down to the shore bastions, still manned by their
sons and grandsons. And inland they could see the pillars of
smoke rising from burning villages, very close to the city.
It was a long pull up the coast, in the overburdened galleys,
to Tyre or Sidon, Byblos or Beirut, where they could hope to be
safe. And there, housed reluctantly in the homes of relatives or
business associates, they received the expected but unbelievable