The Judaean annals then relate Hazael's advance to Gath; the city was captured and Jerusalem was saved only by using the Temple and palace treasure as a bribe.
There is a fairly continuous intercourse with external culture (Cypriote, early and late Greek), and, if Gath be identified with Tel es-Safi, Bliss and Macalister, who excavated it, found no trace of any interruption in its history.
All Israel and Judah flocked to his side, and David, attended only by the Cherethites and Pelethites and some recent recruits from Gath, found it expedient to flee.
Among these the most important are the Wadi Selman (Valley of Aijalon) which seems to have been the principal route to Jerusalem in ancient times; the Wadi Isma`in south of this, along which runs the modern carriage road from Jaffa to Jerusalem; and the Wadi es-Surar, a higher section of the bed of the Nahr Rubin, along which now runs the railway line; farther to the south we may mention the Wadi es-Sunt, which opens up the country from Tell es-Safi (Gath?) eastward.
Barnes, Chron., p. 104), it is surely difficult, on historical grounds, to reconcile David's recurring fights with the Philistines with his subsequent escape from Saul to Achish of Gath (xxvii.; already anticipated in xxi.
