Beer Sheva's history reaches back to the Chalcolithic age (4000 BCE), 1,500
years before Abraham, when it was inhabited by a highly gifted agricultural
people who first lived in subterranean dwellings. Excavations have revealed
their jewellery, pottery, basket-work and ornaments - all fashioned by skilled
craftsmen.
Above all, Beer Sheva is the town most closely associated
with the Patriarchs. Isaac and Jacob lived here and Abraham gave it its name -
The Well of the Oath - for it was here that he made his covenant with
Abimelech: "And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech;
and both of them made a covenant . . .
"Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because
there they sware both of them." (Gen. 21: 27 and 31.)
After the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, Beer Sheva was allotted to the
Tribe of Simeon, and it was then the most southerly point of permanent
habitation in the country, hence the biblical expression "From Dan to
Beersheba." Further south was the domain of nomad shepherds.
When the Jews returned from their Babylonian captivity in
the 6th century BCE, Beer Sheva was one of the towns they resettled: "And
the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast
lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city, and nine parts
to dwell in other cities . . .
"And they dwelt from Beersheba unto the valley of
Hinnom" (Nehemiah 11: 1, and 30).
The earliest settlement of the present site, for the remains
of ancient Beer Sheva lie 5 kilometres to the northeast, took place during the
late Roman and Byzantine periods. Parts of a mosaic floor of a Byzantine church
discovered here will be diplayed in a new museum. The earlier settlement (Tel
Sheva) has been excavated, and some of the objects found there are on display
at the site.
Until the beginning of this century, Beer Sheva was just a collection of wells where Bedouin watered their flocks. In 1900, the Turkish authorities built a small town to serve as an administrative centre for the Negev's Bedouin tribes.
During World War I, the Germans connected it by rail with
the Sinai peninsula, and in 1917 the town fell to the British General Allenby
in his northward advance. By 1948, its inhabitants numbered some 3,000.
During the War of Independence, Beer Sheva was held by the Egyptians who strongly fortified it; but they were overcome by Israeli forces in "Operation Ten Plagues" on 21 October 1948. Since then, Beer Sheva has grown into a town of 165,000 inhabitants who originate from every quarter of the globe. Many Soviet Jews have settled here. In the first years of the State of Israel it was very much a "Wild West" frontier town and it retains something of this flavour to this day.