Beth-shemesh

Beth-shemesh, “house of the sun,” was most notably a Levitical city on Judah's northern border where the ark rested and was welcomed with sacrifice after the Philistines returned it, following an incident in which curious residents were struck down for looking into it. It was later the site of a battle in which Judah's king Amaziah was captured by Israel's king Jehoash. Excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh have uncovered a fortified Iron Age town with evidence of both Israelite and Philistine material culture, consistent with its position on the contested border between the two. Two smaller places bore the same name elsewhere in Israel, and a fourth, an Egyptian sun-temple city the Greeks called Heliopolis, appears in Jeremiah's prophecy against Egypt.