Acco

A Canaanite-Phoenician city referred to only once in the Bible: "Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco � so the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: for they did not drive them out" (Judg 1:31-32). Acco is mentioned for the first time in the Egyptian Execration Texts of the 19th century B.C. and is also listed in the conquests of Thutmosis III (15th century B.C.), who conquered it in his first campaign. It often appears in the El Amarna Letters of the 14th century B.C. and its rulers, Suratu and Sutatna, bore non-Semitic names, apparently Indo-Iranian. At that time Acco was the most important harbor serving Galilee, and formed an important center for Egyptian rule. It was not conquered by the Israelites before the time of David, but Solomon presumably ceded it to Hiram king of Tyre (I Kgs 9:12-13; II Chr 8:1-2) and from then on it was a Phoenician city. Under the name of Akku it was conquered by Sennacherib in his campaign in 701 B.C. In the Persian period it was also an apparently autonomous Phoenician harbor. Cambyses probably assembled his forces at Acco before his assault on Egypt, as did other Persian kings in the 4th century B.C. Classical sources mention Acco and its sandy plain in conjunction with the invention of glass blowing. In the Hellenistic period Acco/Akke was renamed Ptolemais and when Paul landed there after his third missionary journey, it was already the home of a Christian church (Acts 21:7). Ancient Acco is located at Tell el-Fukhar, 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Hellenistic, medieval and modern Acre. Extensive excavations at the site revealed it was first occupied in the Early Bronze Age I. Part of the mound was submerged by the sea for a lengthy period of time, and it was not resettled or fortified the Middle Bronze Age I, when the Canaanites began to urbanize the coast. By the Late Bronze Age, Acco was a well planned city, but apparently unfortified. The location of the gate destroyed by Rameses II (shown in the Karnak reliefs) is unknown. The rise of its rival, Tyre, apparently caused the decline of Acco in the Iron Age I-II (11th-9th centuries B.C.). The city revived in the 9th century and reached its zenith in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. In this period Acco was a center of metal industry. In the Persian period, Acco turned into a cosmopolitan city, which retained its importance in the Hellenistic period.

Concordance
Judg 1:31