Isaiah's Towns

Isaiah 10 talks about a list of places the Assyrian army went in route to Jerusalem where they were finally defeated by the angel of god. There are 13 places they made it to, before being turned back.

Grid

Notes

Some translations only have 12 names in the list. This is due to translating "Beth Bethan" as the phrase "we will camp overnight" or something similar. Obviously, for this map to work, there need to be 13 names.

The places named in the list do not correspond to the historical territories of the tribes. Multiple names are from Benjamin's territory for example. So the point of this map is to say something other than what a study of the places in the territories would tell us.

The meaning of this map is not clear to me, but I'll leave the page around as something to ponder and study for awhile.

One aspect of this list I do understand is the idea that all 13 tribes were taken in the Assyrian campaign. Often people think only the northern 10 tribes were taken. Second Kings is explicit that all the fortified cities of the southern kingdom were also overthrown and only Jerusalem and the "remnant" inside its walls survived. This is in fact the force of this passage is Isaiah as well. The Assyrians marched where they wanted until they came to Jerusalem, where they were finally turned back. To reinforce that all 13 tribes were taken, other than a remnant from some of the tribes in the southern kingdom, Isaiah gives us 13 place names.