Philistine Conflicts A Thorn in Israel's Side And there was again war with the Philistines.--2 Samuel 21:191. James Parkinson The Philistines were usually a source of conflict and oppression to the Israelites, from the time of Isaac until Israel’s captivities under the Assyrians and Babylonians, then again until the Romans expelled them in the Diaspora (a Gospel age dispersion among the nations of the globe), and once more since 1878 with their return to the land. Who were the Philistines? The first mention of the Philistines comes in the Table of the Nations in Genesis 10: “And Mizraim begat Ludim . . . and Lehabim . . . and Pathrusim, and Casluhim (whence went forth the Philistines), and Caphtorim” (Genesis 10:13,14). Egypt (Mizraim: literally, the two Egypts) colonized many regions which subsequently broke away and became independent nations, among them the early Lydians (cf. Lud in Genesis 10:22), Lybians, Pathros in upper (upstream, southern) Egypt, and Caphtor (the Minoan civilization of Crete and the neighboring islands). One of the Egyptian colonizations itself gave rise to the Philistines, who began encroaching on the land of Canaan and spread northward along the Mediterranean coast. In later times, the eruptions of the volcano Thera2 displaced many people, eventually resulting in Greek domination of the islands, and subsequent immigration of Minoans to Philistia (Palestine). Rameses III fought a bloody, though likely indecisive, battle to keep them from spreading back into Egypt. The land of the Philistines was originally in the land of Canaan and not part of Egypt. But the sin of Ham against his father resulted in Noah cursing Ham’s youngest son3, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant [or: their servant]. God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant” (Genesis 9:24-27). Thus, the incursion of the Philistines into Canaan was part of the fulfillment of this curse, as was that of Amraphel king of Shinar with Chedorlaomer king of Elam (Genesis 14),4 or Israel nearly five centuries later, or Assyria, or Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and then the Saracen Arabs under Mohammed, followed by the Turks and the British. In the early record of Genesis 20:1 to 21:34, we see the Philistine capital in Gerar. From Joshua 13:3, we learn that the later Philistines were not a single nation, but were a confederation of five peoples, with capitals at Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron5 From Judges 3:3 we see that they stretched from el-Arish in the southwest to nearly the Plain of Sharon; north of them were the Canaanites and then the Sidonians (the first nation to split away from Canaan). Abraham’s slaughter of Elamite and Sumerian, and their allies, freed the Philistines (and the other western nations) from the threat of eastern domination. The early Philistine kings, commonly titled Abi-melech (which means my father was king), were generally favorable to Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 20 and 26), although sometimes their people were not (Genesis 21:25; 26:18-22). Abraham had thought the Philistine king was godless, but was fortunate to find that Abi-melech still upheld a good regard for God. After the exodus, when Israel came into the land which the Lord had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, the Israelites took first the land of the hill country and delayed to take the Philistine coastal plain (and also the coastlands farther north). At that time the new Egyptian dynasty from south Egypt was chasing out the Hykos rulers of the Nile Delta and warring in Philistia. These apparent Egyptian allies of the Israelites were then the greater threat to the Philistines, who consequently gave Israel little trouble before Ehud the Benjamite conquered Moab. Subsequently, Shamgar slew 600 Philistines with an ox-goad (Judges 3:31). After Deborah and Gideon a century later, the Philistines took the offensive, attacking and oppressing Israel (aided by the Ammonites, who conquered the Israelites east of the Jordan River--Judges 10:7). After nearly another century, the Philistines dominated Israel for forty years, until the time of Samson.6 The Philistines cheated Samson repeatedly. Samson responded by slaying thirty Philistines for their clothing; he used three hundred foxes to destroy their grain fields and olive orchards, slew those who burned his wife to death, slew another thousand with the jawbone of an ass; and after being blinded and abused, he slew three thousand more by collapsing their temple-house upon them all (Judges 14 to 16). Some years later, the Philistines slew four thousand Israelites in one battle. Then two priests, sons of Eli, brought the ark of the Lord to the battlefield, but the Lord did not reward their wrong; thirty thousand Israelites were slain in this battle, and even the ark was lost to the Philistines. They took the ark as a spoil into the temple-house of Dagon, the fish-god, to demonstrate Dagon’s supposed victory over the Lord. The first night Dagon fell over, the next night Dagon lost its head, hands, and legs, and the people developed hemorrhoidal tumors (said by <I>Smith’s Bible Dictionary<I*> to be common in Syria today). Thereupon they twice moved the ark to another city, but in each place the people got tumors or died (likely of mouse-borne bubonic plague). After seven frightful months they sent the ark back to the Israelites with a trespass-offering. Two nursing cows were taken from their calves and attached to a new cart that held the ark of the Lord, but there was no driver to guide them. When the cows chose the most difficult road, going uphill toward Israel, the Philistines knew their plague had come from the Lord of Israel. When the ark came to the Israelite district of Beth-shemesh, the Israelites rejoiced at last (1 Samuel 4 to 6). Here is a lesson: When the Lord’s people willfully do wrong, the Lord may not protect them from the consequences. However, their oppressors cannot appropriate the Lord’s blessing to themselves. The Christian learns, “For what glory is it if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God” (1 Peter 2:20). We read of the Philistines as being prime enemies of the Israelites from then on, extending into the reigns of King Saul and King David. The year after Saul became king, his son Jonathan battled and beat a Philistine garrison at Geba in a valley north of Jerusalem. Preparing for battle, Saul rashly offered a sacrifice rather than wait for Samuel to come as promised; in so doing he lost the right to establish his dynasty. But at this time God gave Jonathan victory over a special force of twenty Philistines. An earthquake turned the worried Philistine army to flight, and so Israel beat them all throughout the upper Aijalon Valley. The Philistines then left Israel alone for many years. David and Goliath Some decades later the Philistines attempted a new tactic. There were four warrior-sons of a giant from the city of Gath. The most valiant of the four was Goliath, an armed warrior between two and three meters in height. He offered to avert war by fighting Israel’s most valiant man; the loser’s people would then serve the winner’s people. Goliath thundered his challenge morning and evening for forty days, while the Israelites shrank in terror. But David, a youth in his twenties and part-time armor-bearer to King Saul, then took up the challenge. David’s weapons, slingshot and staff, were unconventional, but nevertheless had been proven against a lion and a bear. Goliath boisterously disdained both the youth and his weapons, but when he charged ahead of his shield-bearer, David armed his slingshot, stunned Goliath with a stone to the forehead, and then seized Goliath’s own sword to slay him. Thereupon the Philistines forgot about the agreement to serve Israel and fled.7
Here is another lesson: many a man has set a trap for others only to be caught in it himself. So it was with Saul. As Song of Solomon 8:6 suggests, “Jealousy is cruel as the grave” (it is no respecter of persons). Samuel reminded the errant Saul, “Though thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?” (1 Samuel 15:17). A blessing from the Lord should not make us think highly of ourselves, for we too can be rejected by him. One temptation is given in 1 Timothy 6:9,10, “But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil [Greek: evils]: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” A Philistine Change of Heart When David became king of all Israel, the Philistines came up from the coast into the Valley of Rephaim (Giants), stretching northeastward almost to the Valley of Hinnom on the southwest side of Jerusalem. 1 Chronicles 14:8-17 relates that the Lord told David the first time to “go up” against the Philistines; from the Valley of Hinnom they would have to go uphill before they could go down into the Valley of Rephaim to engage the Philistines in battle. When the Philistines mustered a larger force in that valley the second time, the Lord told David not to go up against them but to circle around behind them, then wait until they heard the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees. Quite possibly, the wind that caused the creaking of the trees also blew up a sandstorm into the eyes of the Philistines; whereupon the Israelite victory was assured. The valley was then taken, even as far as the Philistine city of Gezer. Thereafter the Philistine threat was considerably diminished. It was in the days of Jehoram, son of Ahab, king of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel, that Elisha raised from the dead the son of a woman at Shunem. Later, as a seven-year famine was approaching, he warned the Shunammite lady to take her household away from Israel, and she dwelt seven years in the land of the Philistines. When the time was up, she returned, and the king ordered that her house, her land, and even the harvested fruits, be restored to her (2 Kings 8:1-6). [It seems likely these seven years, as with the seven days of the feast of tabernacles, typify the thousand-year reign of Christ.] In later times, the Lord used the Philistines to punish Jehoram, an evil king of Judah, but he helped the good king Uzziah (Azariah) against them; yet again he allowed the Philistines to invade the border towns of Judah because of the wickedness of King Ahaz (see 2 Chronicles 21:16; 26:7; 28:18). Thereafter, the Assyrians and the Babylonians became the major oppressors of both Israel and all the surrounding tribes. A Concluding Lesson There is yet another lesson for us in the overall experiences of the Lord’s
people with the Philistines: Abraham obeyed God and was blessed by him. The Israelites
also wanted the blessing, but not if it meant any inconvenience to themselves; so they
lost it. “Now these things happened unto them by way of type; and they were written
for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Likewise they apply to us. If we want the
blessing of God, we must bless God. 1. Bible quotations are from editions of the Revised Version, except that the name “Jehovah” is replaced by “the LORD.” 2. Tehra (also called Santorini) was the holy island of the Minoan civilization. Its explosive disappearance, likely the source of reports of the lost “continent” of Atlantis, left only a thin ring of islands around the sunken caldera. Its major eruptions, perhaps in B.C. 1615, disrupted the Peoples of the Sea, who for several centuries thereafter immigrated to the Philistine coast, and so added to the numbers of the Philistines. 3. Thus the curse was not upon Cush, Mizraim, or Put (Black Africa, South India, etc.; Egypt; or North Africa); but against the only completely non-African descendants of Ham. 4. Ur-Nammu king of Sumer and Kutir-Lagamer king of Elam (then limited to southwestern Iran), ca. B.C. 2050. 5. .It might be inferred that five lieutenant kings had by then conspired to overthrow the king of Gerar. 6. Pharaoh Merneptah of Egypt records on a stone stele, “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.” It simply means that during the Philistine captivity Israel was not a sovereign nation. Likely dates for the Philistine captivity are B.C. 1246-1207, and the R. A. Parker dates for Merneptah are 1223-1211. 7. David took five smooth stones to the encounter with Goliath, but needed only one. He had three more if needed for Goliath’s three brothers, and still he would not have been left unarmed. Goliath’s threat, “I will give thy flesh unto the birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the field,” was returned in kind by David: “I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day unto the birds of the heavens, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’s” (1 Samuel 17:44-47). The wording is suggestive of Revelation 19:17-21, “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sitteth upon the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with it the false prophet that wrought the signs in its sight . . . and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sitteth upon the horse, even the sword which cometh forth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” Thus, there appears to be something prophetic of the end of the age in the account of David vs. Goliath. |
