Joppa (Jaffa)
יָפוֹ
Where was biblical Joppa? At Old Jaffa, the hill above the port, Tel Aviv-Yafo. I mark it certain.
Jonah ran from his mission here. He went down to Jaffa, found a ship bound for Tarshish at the far end of the known world, and paid his fare.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Old Jaffa, the hill above the port, Tel Aviv-Yafo
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Japho, Yafo, Yafa, Tel Yafo
- Location
- 32.0554° N, 34.7522° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The name has never moved. Egyptian scribes wrote Yapu. Assyrian scribes wrote Yappu. In Hebrew it is Yafo, in Greek Ioppe, in Arabic Yafa. Egyptian texts name it, including a tale of the city's capture by a general of Pharaoh Thutmose III. The Amarna letters name it. Sennacherib's annals name it. Every one of those records points at this hill.
The coast explains why the hill mattered. Jaffa is the only natural harbor on this stretch of the southern coast, a rocky headland with a small anchorage behind it. So when Solomon needed cedar from Lebanon, Hiram promised to float it down the coast in rafts to Jaffa. From here it went up to Jerusalem. Centuries later the exiles came back from Babylon to build the Second Temple. They paid the men of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar by sea, and it landed at the same port. And when Jonah wanted to get as far from his mission as a man could go, this is where he found a ship.
Excavators on the hill uncovered an Egyptian fortress with a monumental gate inscribed with the name of Ramesses II. Above it lay remains from the time of the kings, and from the Persian and Hellenistic periods after them.
Jaffa also marks the edge of Dan's portion. Joshua runs the tribe's border to the waters of the Yarkon and Rakkon, facing Jaffa. The Tanach and the ground agree here completely.
Visiting today
Old Jaffa's restored lanes and port are open to walk. You can see excavations at the Visitors' Center under Kedumim Square, and the reconstructed Ramesses II gate in the garden at the top of the hill.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Jaffa on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Gath Rimmon 7 km northeast
- Bene Berak 7 km east
- Beth Dagon 9 km southeast
- Aphek 18 km east
- Gezer 27 km southeast
- Shaalbim 30 km southeast