Tell Malkhata was the land's south-easternmost city in the Phase II of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1600 BC), when no town existed at Arad. The archaeological evidence indicates that it was rebuilt in the 10th century, probably by Solomon, perhaps as a station on the way from Jerusalem to Edom. (If it is mentioned in the Bible, we do not know by what name.) It was destroyed with fire, probably by Pharaoh Shishak (ca. 925 BC). Rebuilt, it continued to exist through the Edomite invasion of 586 BC. Of the pottery from the 6th-century BC, about a third is Edomite.

The tell was settled again in the Hellenistic period. The Romans built a fortress on it, and the Byzantines maintained it. People were living here as late as the 8th century AD, the early Arab period.