The second city of Judah after Jerusalem — a great fortress guarding the Shephelah approaches, excavated since the 1930s and one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel. ⚠ Micah 1:13 gives it the sharpest line of his lament, punning Lakhish on la-rekhesh ('to the steeds' — harness and flee) and charging it as 'the beginning of sin for Daughter Zion,' the gateway by which the north's idolatry and chariot-trust entered the south. Its fall is the best-documented battle in the Bible: SENNACHERIB besieged and took it in 701 BC and carved the whole assault across a room of his palace at Nineveh — the LACHISH RELIEFS, now in the British Museum, showing the siege ramp, the battering rams, and the captives led out (the ramp itself has been excavated). The LACHISH LETTERS, ostraca from its last days before Babylon destroyed it in 586, are among the oldest Hebrew documents. Amaziah of Judah was murdered here (2 Kings 14:19).