In Old Testament days Joppa was Israel’s only port on the Mediterranean coast. It lay between the plain of Sharon to the north and the land of the Philistines to the south.
When timber was brought from Lebanon to be used in the construction of Solomon’s temple, it was floated down from Tyre and Sidon in rafts, received at Joppa, and then taken to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2:16). A similar arrangement was apparently used four hundred years later when Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple (Ezra 3:7). Joppa was the port where Jonah boarded a ship when he tried to flee from God (Jonah 1:3; for map see JONAH).
Joppa was one of the first places outside Jerusalem that the apostles visited in the early days of the church. There Dorcas was raised to life (Acts 9:36-43) and there Peter had a remarkable vision that changed his ideas about the evangelization of the Gentiles (Acts 10). The town still exists today, as part of Tel Aviv, and is known as Jaffa (or Yafo).