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3,000-year-old Artifacts Prove Connection Between Biblical David and Goliath

In the Bible, the giant Goliath came out from Gath to face the Israelites, and was smitten by a rock hurled from David’s sling. Garfinkel says the weapons, the cult items and even the animal bones found around Khirbet Qeiyafa support his view that the settlement was a key military outpost for the historical House of David, riven by conflict. “There was something here quite military and quite aggressive,” he said. “It was not a peaceful village.”

Published

14 years ago

May 9, 2012

Geoffrey Grider

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5 smooth stones

RELATED STORY: Science and the Bible Series

An archaeological dig near Goliath’s biblical hometown has yielded evidence of Judean religious practices 3,000 years ago, pointing up fresh historical connections to the stories of King David and King Solomon.

Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shows off an ark, or stone shrine model, that was found during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an ancient settlement southwest of Jerusalem.

“We have a city with a population relating to the Kingdom of Judah,” Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told me today. “This is totally different from Philistine, Canaanite or the cult in the Kingdom of Israel.”

The site, known today as Khirbet Qeiyafa, is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem, on top of a hill overlooking the Valley of Elah. For the past five years, Garfinkel and his colleagues have been excavating the ruins of a fortified city there, situated across from what was once the Philistine city of Gath. In the Bible, the giant Goliath came out from Gath to face the Israelites, and was smitten by a rock hurled from David’s sling.

Garfinkel can’t vouch for the story of Goliath, but he says the weapons, the cult items and even the animal bones found around Khirbet Qeiyafa support his view that the settlement was a key military outpost for the historical House of David, riven by conflict. “There was something here quite military and quite aggressive,” he said. “It was not a peaceful village.”

A decorated clay shrine model was found at the Khirbet Qeiyafa site.

Based on radiocarbon dating of burned olive pits found at the site, archaeologists believe the ancient city lasted for only 40 years, from 1020 to 980 B.C., before it was destroyed. Some skeptics have suggested that Khirbet Qeiyafa was just another Canaanite settlement, and that David was at best a minor chieftain, or perhaps a folkloric figure like Robin Hood. But Garfinkel said the items found at the site strengthen the connection to King David and the religious practices specified in the Bible.

“Over the years, thousands of animal bones were found, including sheep, goats and cattle, but no pigs,” he said in a news release from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Now we uncovered three cultic rooms, with various cultic paraphernalia, but not even one human or animal figurine was found. This suggest that the population on Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two biblical bans — on pork and on graven images — and thus practiced a different cult from that of the Canaanites or the Philistines.”

Garfinkel told me that the absence of human imagery was peculiar to the Judeans. “In the northern Kingdom of Israel, you find human representations,” he said.

This basalt altar was found during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

The cult objects included five standing stones, two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels and two portable shrines. Garfinkel said the shrines reflected a Mesopotamian architectural style that went back centuries before the era of King David, and probably inspired the look of the palace built by Solomon, David’s son. “It seems that Solomon didn’t want to be Canaanite and took a different model from Mesopotamia,” Garfinkel told me.

The shrines are boxlike containers made of stone or clay. “I think they were called in Hebrew ‘Aron,'” Garfinkel wrote in an email. “This had been translated into English as ‘ark’ and became a mystic artifact. I think that the Hebrew name was just a simple technical term: a box for keeping god symbols.”

Such shrines were probably similar in look to the “Ark of God” highlighted in the Bible as well as in such movies as “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The clay shrine has an intricate facade, featuring two guardian lions, pillars and birds standing on the roof. The stone shrine was painted red, and its facade is decorated with characteristic triglyph symbols as well as a triple-recessed doorway in front. Garfinkel said the Bible may have referred to those architectural features in its description of Solomon’s palace. The technical term usually translated as referring to pillars (“Slaot”) may actually be talking about triglyphs, while another term that was thought to refer to windows (“Sequfim”) might instead refer to the doorways.

“Now you can see by the model that you have triglyphs at the roof, and you have recessed doorways,” Garfinkel said. Such features are also mentioned in biblical references to King Solomon’s temple, which was built decades after the age that gave rise to the shrines found at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Will these finds settle the debate over the historical David? Garfinkel would like to think so. “Various suggestions that completely deny the biblical tradition regarding King David and argue that he was a mythological figure, or just a leader of a small tribe, are now shown to be wrong,” he said in today’s news release. source – MSNBC

Related Topics:Ark of God David and Goliath Hebrew University of Jerusalem Khirbet Qeiyafa

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OPERATION AFRICA! UPDATE: We’re Sending The Children At The Glory Fellowship Orphanage Some Pillows To Go With Their New Mattress And Blankets

Published

21 hours ago

August 22, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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We need to send pillows for all the orphans at the Glory Fellowship Orphange in Kenya, come help us to complete this urgent calling at Operation Africa!

An NTEB’r wrote to us the other day, sending some much-needed and appreciated support for Operation Africa!, and with that support included a very short message that simply read something along the lines of “let’s send them some pillows. They need pillows”. As I read it, I thought that’s a great idea, then got super busy and the thought went right out of my head. Earlier this afternoon, the Lord brought it back to my remembrance, and I ordered enough pillows for every one of the orphans. The image you see at the top of this article is a photo of what the pillows look like, perfect and for kids who live in crushing poverty.

“And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?“ Mark 4:38 (KJB)

Pastor Dancan asked us for the 200 Bibles we originally sent him, and we were happy to wind up sending over 1,100 of them for his church. But he never asked us for things they so desperately needed like clean water, or a water tank, or a well, or the mattresses and blankets we sent him. He didn’t even ask us for medicine for the kids, as sick as they were, when they had malaria and typhoid, and he didn’t ask us to send the children these pillows. So who asked us to do all this? The LORD did, He gave us an urgent and unmistakable calling, and we are doing are best to answer it. We need to raise just under a thousand dollars to pay for the pillows, and we invite you to come help us!

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If God has prospered you, please take a moment to click on the donate button to help us in this overwhelmingly urgent task of providing the children of Glory Fellowship Orphange with medicine and clean drinking water. We need your prayers, we need your generous financial support, and we need you to stand with us in the closing days of the Church Age. Thank you so very much, TO THE FIGHT!!!

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When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

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Donald Trump

Eisenhower Warned Us About The Military-Industrial Complex, Now ‘President Of War’ Donald Trump Is Building One Beneath The White House Ballroom

Published

2 days ago

August 21, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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From People’s House To Presidential Fortress As Trump Builds A Nuclear-Hardened Military Complex Beneath His Golden Ballroom

Donald Trump has spent years promoting himself as the great peacemaker, the man who would end wars and prevent World War III. Yet his most permanent architectural contribution to the American presidency is not a peace garden, a diplomatic center or a hall dedicated to reconciliation—it is a five-story military fortress buried beneath the White House. What began as a lavish ballroom with chandeliers, gold columns and thousand-seat state dinners is now being defended before the Supreme Court as an “integrated military complex” essential to surviving bombs, missiles, drones and even nuclear attack. The symbolism could not be more devastating: Trump talks like the president of peace, but he is rebuilding the People’s House for war. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Supreme Court has temporarily allowed construction to continue while considering the administration’s emergency appeal.

“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Revelation 6:15-17 (KJB)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star general who understood war better than almost any president before or since, warned America in 1961 about the dangerous rise of the military-industrial complex. He cautioned that the combination of government power, military machinery and private industry could acquire “unwarranted influence” and endanger both liberty and democratic government. Sixty-five years later, Trump is constructing a literal military complex beside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Private corporations and wealthy elite donors finance the glittering ballroom above, while the government and military build the hardened command fortress below. Eisenhower’s warning is no longer merely hanging over Washington—it is being poured into the ground in nuclear-grade concrete.

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The administration’s own Supreme Court filing removes all doubt about the true character of this structure. It describes five underground stories containing bomb shelters, military command-and-control capabilities, secure communications, emergency hospital facilities, missile-resistant columns, blast-proof glass, military-grade ventilation, sniper positions and a rooftop drone port. Above ground, visiting dignitaries will dine beneath crystal chandeliers; below their feet, military personnel will monitor tactical screens behind blast doors. The ballroom is the façade, but the bunker is the beating heart of his project.

This is the presidency Trump is physically preparing for: permanent threats, expanding militarization and catastrophic warfare. A true president of peace would be measured by the wars he ended and the bloodshed he prevented—not by the magnificence of the bunker he constructed for himself and future rulers. Trump may continue to speak the language of peace, but concrete tells the truth. Missiles, drones, bomb shelters, sniper nests and nuclear protection are not the architecture of a coming golden age. They are the architecture of a government expecting the world to burn. Donald Trump calls himself the president of peace, but his Military-Industrial Complex Ballroom reveals a president preparing for war.

Trump Is Fulfilling Eisenhower’s Warning Of The Military Industrial Complex

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“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

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Headline News

THE PROPHECY NEWS PODCAST: As Ben-Gvir Builds His Gallows, We Ask Are Israel’s Own Rulers Helping Make Jerusalem The ‘Burdensome Stone’ To The World?

Published

2 days ago

August 21, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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THE WHOLE WORLD AGAINST JERUSALEM: Could The Actions Of Israel’s Own Leaders Be Helping Fulfill The End Times Conditions Foretold By The Prophets?

Isaiah’s warning is not merely some distant prophetic curiosity — we are watching the pattern unfold right now. The prophet Isaiah speaks of “scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem”, and today Israel is being led by men whose rhetoric, policies and public displays are helping turn the nations against the Jewish state. Ben-Gvir standing before newly constructed gallows, boasting about executions and viewing booths, is not simply another controversial political moment; it is exactly the kind of spectacle that hardens global opinion, isolates Jerusalem and gives Israel’s enemies fresh ammunition. The world is already increasingly hostile toward Israel, and instead of slowing that momentum, some of Israel’s own rulers are actively pouring gasoline on the fire. The “scornful men” are ruling Jerusalem, and they are helping create the very conditions the prophets said would exist in the last days.

“Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.” Isaiah 28:14 (KJB)

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” Zechariah 12:3 (KJB)

On this episode of the Prophecy News Podcast, Zechariah said Jerusalem would become “a burdensome stone for all people” and that eventually “all the people of the earth” would be gathered against it (Zechariah 12:3 KJB). That prophecy does not require Israel to be innocent of every wrong action; in fact, Scripture repeatedly shows Israel in rebellion and under corrupt leadership immediately before divine intervention. What we are witnessing now is the process taking shape: outrage, condemnation, diplomatic isolation, growing hostility, and leaders in Jerusalem whose own actions are accelerating the collapse of international sympathy. Ben-Gvir’s gallows are not happening in a vacuum — they are part of a larger prophetic trajectory in which Jerusalem becomes increasingly unbearable to the nations. The road to Zechariah 12 is being built in real time, and astonishingly, some of the men ruling Jerusalem are helping pave it themselves. Today we do a Bible Study ripped from the headlines to show you just how close the Jews and Israel are to the time of Jacob’s trouble!

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