The ruins of the ancient Canaanite village of Kedesh are located within the modern Kibbutz Malkiya in Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Kedesh was first documented in the Book of Joshua as a Canaanite citadel that was conquered by the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua. Ownership for Kedesh was turned over, by lot, to the tribe of Naphtali and subsequently, at the command of God, Kedesh was set apart by Joshua as one of the Cities of Refuge along with Shechem and Kiriath Arba (Hebron) (Joshua 20:7).
In the 8th century BCE during the reign of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III king of Assyria took Kedesh and deported its inhabitants to Assyria (2 Kings 15:29).
Later, in the 5th century BCE Kedesh may have become the capital for the Persian controlled, Tyrian administrated province of the Upper Galilee.
In 259 BCE Kedesh was mentioned by Zenon, a traveling merchant from Egypt.
Between 145 BCE and 143 BCE, Kedesh (Cades) was overthrown by Jonathan Maccabeus in his fight against the Seleucid king Demetrius I Soter. It remains abandoned. Tel Kedesh continues to be excavated by the University of Michigan.
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