Joppa

An ancient seaport on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, about fifty-five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem at the southern edge of the Plain of Sharon. Joppa served Judah as its principal Mediterranean window throughout the biblical period — cedar from Lebanon was floated down the coast and landed here for both Solomon's and the Second Temple (1 Kings 5; Ezra 3).

In the book of Jonah, the prophet "went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish" (Jonah 1:3) — running west by sea to escape the eastward overland mission to Nineveh. Centuries later Peter raises Tabitha here (Acts 9) and receives the rooftop vision of the unclean animals that opens the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10). The harbor's modern name is Jaffa, now joined to Tel Aviv.