Japha

Japho is the Hebrew name for the port city better known by its Greek form, Joppa (modern Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv). Solomon's cedar for the temple, and later Ezra's timber for the second temple, arrived by sea at Joppa before being hauled up to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2:16; Ezra 3:7). It also marked the tribal border of Dan (Joshua 19:46) and was the port Jonah fled through toward Tarshish. Egyptian records from the Amarna archive already mention a guarded gate of Joppa centuries earlier, showing the city's long standing as a coastal gateway.