JOPPA jŏp’ ə (יָפֹֽו, יָפֹ֔וא, ̓Ιόππη, G2673, the beautiful city). KJV JAPHO, jā fō (Josh 19:46).

1. The site. Joppa was the seaport for Jerusalem c. thirty-five m. NW of that Israelite capital. It was the only natural harbor on the Mediterranean between Egypt and OT Acco (NT Ptolemais). A rocky cape projected into the sea and, since its elevation was about 125 ft. above the sea, it made an ideal military and commercial site. Reefs formed a rough semicircle c. 300 ft. to 400 ft. off the shore but boats could enter from the N. Nearby were sandy beaches where shallow craft could come ashore. Two good springs supplied the city with water. The land around the city was very fertile. The site today is known as Jaffa, and is a suburb of Tel Aviv.

2. History. The first historic reference to Joppa is in the list of Palestinian cities captured by Thutmose III, 1472 b.c. Joppa remained one of the key Egyp. administrative cities in Pal. from that time until the Israelite invasion. It is mentioned twice in the Tell el-Amarna letters. It was then allied with Jerusalem. In the Papyrus Anastasi I of the 13th cent. b.c., Joppa was described as surrounded by beautiful gardens, and her craftsmen were specialists in working metals, wood and leather. At the time of Joshua’s conquest, the city was assigned to the tribe of Dan (Josh 19:46, Japho KJV). The tribe of Dan was soon displaced by the invading Philistines; Joppa then became their N seaport, but it was not one of their major political centers. After David’s conquest of the Philistines, Joppa was restored to Israel. Solomon made it the port of reception for the cedar log rafts brought down from the Lebanon mountains for use in the new temple-palace complex he was building at Jerusalem (2 Chron 2:16).

The next reference to Joppa is Jonah 1:3. The prophet Jonah was commanded to preach to Nineveh, but he refused to obey. Instead, he went to Joppa and boarded a ship sailing to Tarshish—prob. that city on the Atlantic coast of Spain near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. This historic episode is best dated about the time of Shalmaneser III. In 743 b.c., Tiglath-pileser III invaded Philistia, capturing Gaza and its major fortress. Joppa must have fallen to him in this campaign. In 701 b.c. Sennacherib came to S Pal. to put down a revolt against his Assyrian empire. Hezekiah of Judah was one of these rebels. In Sennacherib’s record of this campaign, Joppa is one of the cities he destroyed. It is not known when the city was rebuilt, but by the time of Ezra, this commercial port was again in service and the cedar logs from Lebanon needed for the new temple at Jerusalem were rafted to Joppa (Ezra 3:7). About the 4th cent. b.c., the Pers. king gave Joppa and the adjacent farmland to Eshmunazar, king of Sidon. Later, Sidon revolted and was destroyed by Artaxerxes III; Joppa prob. became a free city at that time.

Alexander the Great favored the city, for he changed its name from Yapho to Joppa, a new name that honored the daughter of the Gr. god of the Winds. Alexander, also, established a mint in Joppa.

After, Alexander’s death, the city was fought over by his successors on several occasions. In 301 b.c., Ptolemy took the city. Joppa remained Egyp. until 197 b.c., when it became a part of the Seleucid empire. Joppa had a brief but complex military history in the Maccabean period. At Joppa, Antiochus IV Epiphanes landed his army with plans to enforce the Hellenization of Jerusalem, where later he plundered the temple. Judas later burned the harbor, but the city was too strong to be captured. Jonathan, however, did capture it, although he soon lost it. Simon finally made it an all-Jewish city. After Pompey captured Pal. in 63 b.c., he declared Joppa a free city. Julius Caesar returned it to the Jews in 47 b.c., but Herod the Great captured the city in 37 b.c. when he established his reign. Because of the city’s continued hatred of him, Herod built a magnificent new port at Caesarea, c. forty m. N of Joppa.

Joppa was one of the earliest cities to have a Christian congregation. Its most famous member was Tabitha, or Dorcas. She was the church’s best social worker, and was raised from the dead by Peter (Acts 9:36-42). Later, Peter was again at Joppa visiting at the home of Simon the tanner where he was called to preach to the centurion Cornelius at the rival seaport of Caesarea (10:1-48).

Joppa was one of the centers of the first Jewish revolt, and it was destroyed in the early days of the war by the Syrian proconsul, Cestius Gallus. The citizens refortified the site, but it was again destroyed. It was then replaced by a Rom. army camp in a.d. 68. Some of the Rom. coins struck in honor of the Roman’s victory over the Jews portray the destruction of the Jewish fleet at Joppa.

Bibliography S. Tolkowsky, The Gateway of Palestine—a History of Jaffa (1925); F. M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine (1933).