Gaza is there described as first Canaanite; then Philistine; then, at least after Alexander, Edomite; after Alexander Jannæus, Greek; conquered by Abu-Bekr the first Khalif, it became Mohammedan; it was desolated in their civil wars until the crusaders rebuilt its fort; then again Mohammedan. 1. 1 Maccabees xi. 61, 62.--_From whence he_ [Jonathan] _went to Gaza, but they of Gaza shut him out; wherefore he laid siege unto it, and burned the suburbs thereof with fire, and spoiled them. Afterward, when they of Gaza made supplication unto Jonathan, he made peace with them, and took the sons of their chief men for hostages._ After the death of Alexander, the territory of Gaza became for two centuries the battlefield between the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jewish armies. Twice (315 and 306 B.C.) Antigonus took the city from Ptolemy I. The latter re-took it twice at the point of the sword, and for a century it remained under the power of Egypt. The Syrians again devastated it in 198 B.C. Jonathan Maccabeus (the wary), the Jewish leader and high priest (161-143 B.C.) laid siege to its suburbs, and forced the inhabitants to sue for terms (1 Macc. xi. 61, 62). 2. 1 Maccabees xiii. 43-8.--_In those days Simon camped against Gaza,_[8] _and besieged it round about; he made also an engine of war, and set it by the city,_[9] _and battered a certain tower, and took it._ Simon the Maccabee, Ethnarch, and High Priest, 142-135 B.C., laid siege to the fortress of Gaza, and expelled the heathen inhabitants. Shortly afterwards he appointed his third son, John Hyrcanus I, as commander-in-chief of all his forces. 1. Acts viii. 26.--_And the angel of the LORD spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert._ There is only one New Testament reference to Gaza, and it has given rise to much controversy. The pronoun αὕτη may either relate to ὁδὸν (way) or to Gaza. If the former, then it is the _way_ which is desert; if the latter, it is the _city_. If we apply it to the city it is difficult to reconcile the statement with the facts of history; unless we regard the phrase "which is desert" as a parenthetic explanation of St. Luke's written soon after the destruction of Gaza by the Jews in A.D. 66. Some refer ἔρημος to the _ancient city_ destroyed by Alexander, and affirm that the new city occupied a different site. The words αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος, however, were probably intended to describe the Roman highway on which St. Philip the Evangelist should find the Eunuch. There were then, as now, several roads leading from Jerusalem to Gaza. Two traversed the rich plain of Philistia; but one ran to Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrîn), and thence direct through an uninhabited waste to Gaza.