The Negev and the Iron Age

Judah is strategically, militarily more protected being up in the mountains. There's still tapping into some of the trade coming through the Negev. But how much north-south trade they're getting probably a lot less because the Philistines are their own entity to the west and Judah doesn't really have great access that direction. So they're getting maybe a portion of the pie, but not as much as, say, Assyria wants, that's for sure.