Joshua 12:21

‘ The king of Taanach, one, the king of Megiddo, one.'

These were kings of two of the major cities of Canaan, situated on either side of the Plain of Esdraelon, each having a large population in the tens of thousands. Megiddo was the largest, controlling the pass that led onto the Plain. It is unlikely that these cities were taken. They were heavily fortified, and had Joshua taken them we would have been told about it. It would probably have required another miracle. They were important cities on the main trade route through Canaan, and for this reason were main targets for Egypt when Egypt was strong. They also had connections with Mesopotmia, and a fragment of the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh was found on the site of Megiddo. Possibly they joined forces against Joshua, becoming alarmed at what had happened to Hazor, and were then defeated and killed in open battle. Both later fell to Israel, (possibly after being attacked by someone else) but, instead of destroying the Canaanites, they set them to taskwork (Judges 1:27).

Megiddo was destroyed in c. 1150 BC, well after the time of Joshua and before the time of Deborah. This may have been the work of Israel, but it could in fact have had any number of causes. Israel were not the only predators. The small settlement then built on the site may well have been an Israelite village. But Megiddo was shortly to be rebuilt by Egypt.

Excavations in Taanach produced fourteen tablets written in Akkadian cuneiform demonstrating that the language was used even between local officials. In the debris of a late bronze age destruction a tablet was found in the Canaanite cuneiform alphabet. Taanach is mentioned by Thothmes III, by Shishak, and in the Amarna letters for raiding Megiddo which was loyal to Egypt.