4 For Gaza will be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation. They will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron will be rooted up.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet begins here to console the elect; for when God's vengeance had passed away, which would only be for a time against them, the heathens and foreigners would find God in their turn to be their judge to punish them for the wrongs done to his people; though some think that God's judgment on the Jews is here described, while yet the Prophet expressly mentions their neighbors: but the former view seems to me more suitable,--that the Prophet reminds the faithful of a future change of things, for God would not perpetually afflict his chosen people, but would transfer his vengeance to other nations. The meaning then is--that God, who has hitherto threatened the Jews, would nevertheless be propitious to them, not indeed to all the people, for a great part was doomed to destruction, but to the remnant, whom the Lord had chosen as a seed to himself, that there might be some church remaining. For we know, that God had always so moderated the punishment he inflicted on his people, as not to render void his covenant, nor abolish the memory of Abraham's race: for this reason he was to come forth as their Redeemer. Since then the Prophet speaks here against Gaza, and Ashkelon, and Ashdod, and Akron, and the Philistine, and the Cretians and others, he intended no doubt to add courage to the faithful, that they might not despair of God's mercy, though they might find themselves very grievously oppressed; for he could at length put an end to his wrath, after having purged his Church of its dregs. And this admonition the faithful also need, that they may not envy the wicked and the despisers of God, as though their condition were better or more desirable. For when the Lord spares the wicked and chastens us, we are tempted to think that nothing is better than to shake off every yoke. Lest then this temptation should have assailed the faithful, the Prophet reminded them in time, that there was no reason why the heathens should flatter or congratulate themselves, when God did not immediately punish them; for their portion was prepared for them. He mentions Gaza first, a name which often occurs in scripture. The Hebrews called it Aza; but as , oin, is the first letter, the Greeks have rendered it Gaza, and heathen authors have thought it to be a Persia word, and it means in that language a treasure. But this is a vain notion, for it is no doubt a Hebrew word. He then adds Ashkelon, a city nigh to Gaza. In the third place he mentions Ashdod, which the Greeks have translated Azotus, and the Latins have followed the Greeks. He names Ekron in the last place. All these cities were near to the Jews, and were not far from one another towards the Moabites and the Idumeans. [1] He then adds, Ho! (or, woe to, hv) the inhabitants of the line of the sea. The region of the sea he calls Galilee; and he joins the Kerethites and the Philistine. Some think that he alludes to the troops, who carried on war under David; for he had chosen his garrison soldiers from that nation, that is, from the people of Galilee, and had called them Kerethites and Philistine. But I know not whether the Prophet spoke so refinedly. I rather think, that he refers here to those heathen nations, which had been hostile to the Jews, though vicinity ought to have been a bond of kindness. Hence he includes them all in the name of Canaan: for I do not take it here, as some do, as signifying merchants; for the Prophet evidently means, that however called, they were all Canaanites, who had been long ago doomed to destruction. Since then those regions had been enemies to the Jews, the Prophet intimates that God would become the defender of his chosen people. The word of Jehovah is against you. God, who has hitherto threatened his own people, summons you to judgment. Think not that you will escape unpunished for having vexed his Church. For though God designed to prove the patience of his people, yet neither the Moabites, nor the rest, were excusable when they cruelly oppressed the Jews; yea, when they purposed through them to fight with God himself, the creator of heaven and earth. He afterwards adds, There shall be no inhabitant, for God would destroy them all. We now see that the Prophet had no other design but to alleviate the bitter grief of the faithful by this consolation,--that their miseries would be only for a time, and that God would ere long punish their enemies. It follows--
1 - This verse, literally rendered, retains more of its poetic character,-- 4. For Gaza, forsaken shall she be, And Ashkelon shall be a desolation; Ashdod, at mid-day shall they drive it out, And Ekron shall be rooted up. In the first and the last line there is a correspondence in the sound of the words. The following presents another instance of the nominative case absolute,-- 5. Woe to the dwellers of the line of the sea, The nation of the Kerethites! The word of Jehovah is against you: Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. The line of the sea, meaning the coast along the shore, is so called, says Henderson, "from the custom of using a cord or line in measuring off or dividing a territory." Some derive "Kerethites" from [krt], to cut off, to destroy; and so they were cutters off or destroyers. They were celebrated men of war in the time of David, 2 Samuel 8:18. "Philistines" mean emigrants, says Henderson; the word being derived from a verb, which signifies, in the Ethiopic language, to rove, to migrate.--Ed.
For - As a ground for repentance and perseverance, he goes through Pagan nations, upon whom God's wrath should come. Jerome: "As Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, after visions concerning Judah, turn to other nations round about, and according to the character of each, announce what shall come upon them, and dwell at length upon it, so doth this prophet, though more briefly" And thus under five nations, who lay west, east, south and north, he includes all mankind on all sides, and, again, according to their respective characters toward Israel, as they are alien from, or hostile to the Church; the Philistines Zephaniah 2:4-7, as a near, malicious, infesting enemy; Moab and Ammon Isaiah 2:8-10, people akin to her (as heretics) yet ever rejoicing at her troubles and sufferings; Etheopians Isaiah 5:12, distant nations at peace with her, and which are, for the most part, spoken of as to be brought unto her; Assyria Isaiah. 13-15, as the great oppressive power of the world, and so upon it the full desolation rests.
In the first fulfillment, because Moab and Ammon aiding Nebuchadnezzar, (and all, in various ways wronging God's people Isaiah 16:4; Amos 1:13-15; Amos 2:1-3; Jeremiah 48:27-30, Jeremiah 48:42; Jeremiah 49:1; Ezekiel 20:3, Ezekiel 20:6, Ezekiel 20:8), trampled on His sanctuary, overthrew His temple and blasphemed the Lord, the prophecy is turned against them. So then, before the captivity came, while Josiah was yet king, and Jerusalem and the temple were, as yet, not overthrown, the prophecy is directed against those who mocked at them. "Gaza shall be forsaken." Out of the five cities of the Philistines, the prophet pronounces woe upon the same four as Amos Amos 1:6-8 before, Jeremiah Jeremiah 25:20 soon after, and Zechariah Zac 9:5-6 later. Gath, then, the fifth had probably remained with Judah since Uzziah 2-Chronicles 26:6 and Hezekiah 2-Kings 18:8. In the sentence of the rest, regard is had (as is so frequent in the Old Testament) to the names of the places themselves, that, henceforth, the name of the place might suggest the thought of the doom pronounced upon it.
The names expressed boastfulness, and so, in the divine judgment, carried their own sentence with them, and this sentence is pronounced by a slight change in the word. Thus 'Azzah' (Gaza,) 'strong' shall be 'Azoobah, desolated;' "Ekron, deep-rooting" , shall "Teaker, be uprooted;" the "Cherethites" (cutters off) shall become (Cheroth) "diggings;" "Chebel, the band" of the sea coast, shall be in another sense "Chebel," an "inheritance" Zephaniah 2:5, Zephaniah 2:7, divided by line to the remnant of Judah; and "Ashdod" (the waster shall be taken in their might, not by craft, nor in the way of robbers, but "driven forth" violently and openly in the "noon-day."
For Gaza shall be forsaken - Some vicissitudes of these towns have been noted already . The fulfillment of the prophecy is not tied down to time; the one marked contrast is, that the old pagan enemies of Judah should be destroyed, the house of Judah should be restored, and should re-enter upon the possession of the land, promised to them of old. The Philistine towns had, it seems, nothing to fear from Babylon or Persia, to whom they remained faithful subjects. The Ashdodites (who probably, as the most important, stand for the whole ) combined with Sanballat, "the Ammonites and the Arabians" Nehemiah 4:7, to hinder the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Even an army was gathered, headed by Samaria Nehemiah. 2.
They gave themselves out as loyal, Jerusalem as rebellious Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 6:6. The old sin remaining, Zechariah renewed the sentence by Zephaniah against the four cities Zech. 9; a prophecy, which an unbeliever also has recognized as picturing the march of Alexander . : "All the other cities of Palestine having submitted," Gaza alone resisted the conqueror for two or five months. It had come into the hands of the Persians in the expedition of Cambyses against Egypt . The Gazaeans having all perished fighting at their posts, Alexander sold the women and children, and re-populated the city from the neighborhood . Palestine lay between the two rival successors of Alexander, the Ptolemies and Seleucidae, and felt their wars .
Gaza fell through mischance into the hands of Ptolemy , 11 years after the death of Alexander , and soon after, was destroyed by Antiochus (198 b.c.), "preserving its faith to Ptolemy" as before to the Persians, in a way admired by a pagan historian. In the Maccabee wars, Judas Maccabaeus chiefly destroyed the idols of Ashdod, but also "spoiled their cities" (1 Macc. 5:68); Jonathan set it on fire, with its idol-temple, which was a sort of citadel to it (1 Macc. 10:84); Ascalon submitted to him (1 Macc. 10:86); Ekron with its borders were given to him by Alexander Balas (1 Macc. 10:89); he burned the suburbs of Gaza (1 Macc. 11:61); Simon took it, expelled its inhabitants, filled it with believing Jews and fortified it more strongly than before (1 Macc. 13:43-48); but, after a year's siege, it was betrayed to Alexander Jannaeus, who killed its senate of 500 and razed the city to the ground .
Gabinius restored it and Ashdod . After Herod's death, Ashdod was given to Salome ; Gaza, as being a Greek city , was detached from the realm of Archelaus and annexed to Syria. It was destroyed by the Jews in their revolt when Florus was "procurator," 55 A.D . Ascalon and Gaza must still have been strong, and were probably a distinct population in the early times of Antipater, father of Herod, when Alexander and Alexandra set him over all Idumaea, since "he is said" then "to have made friendship with the Arabs, Gazites and Ascalonites, likeminded with himself, and to have attached them by many and large presents."
Yet though the inhabitants were changed, the hereditary hatred remained. Philo in his Embassy to Caius, 40 a.d., used the strong language , "The Ascalonites have an implacable and irreconcilable enmity to the Jews, their neighbors, who inhabit the holy land." This continued toward Christians. Some horrible atrocities, of almost inconceivable savagery, by these of Gaza and Ascalon 361 a.d., are related by Theodoret and Sozomen . : "Who is ignorant of the madness of the Gazaeans?" asks Gregory of Nazianzus, of the times of Julian. This was previous to the conversion of the great Gazite temple of Marna into a Christian Church by Eudoxia . On occasion of Constantine's exemption of the Maiumas Gazae from their control, it is alleged, that they were "extreme heathen." In the time of the Crusades the Ascalonites are described by Christians as their "most savage enemies."
It may be, that a likeness of sin may have continued on a likeness of punishment. But the primary prediction was against the people, not against the walls. The sentence, "Gaza shall be forsaken," would have been fulfilled by the removal or captivity of its inhabitants, even if they had not been replaced by others. A prediction against any ancient British town would have been fulfilled, if the Britons in it had been replaced or exterminated by Danes, and these by Saxons, and these subdued by the Normans, though their displacers became wealthy and powerful in their place. Even on the same site it would not be the same Gaza, when the Philistine Gaza became Edomite, and the Edomite Greek, and the Greek Arabian . Ashdod (as well as Gaza) is spoken of as a city of the Greeks ; New Gaza is spoken of as a mixture of Turks, Arabians, Fellahs, Bedouins out of Egypt, Syria, Petraea . Felix Faber says, "there is a wonderful com-mixture of divers nations in it, Ethiopians, Arabs, Egyptians, Syrians, Indians and eastern Christians; no Latins ." Its Jewish inhabitants fled from it in the time of Napoleon: now, with few exceptions it is inhabited by Arabs .
But these, Ghuzzeh, Eskalon, Akir, Sedud, are at most successors of the Philistine cities, of which there is no trace above the surface of the earth. It is common to speak of "remnants of antiquity," as being or not being to be found in any of them; but this means, that, where these exist, there are remains of a Greek or Roman, not of a Philistine city.
Of the four cities, "Akkaron," Ekron, ("the firm-rooting") has not left a vestage. It is mentioned by name only, after the times of the Bible, by some who passed by it . There was "a large village of Jews" so called in the time of Eusebius and Jerome , "between Azotus and Jamnia." Now a village of "about 50 mud houses without a single remnant of antiquity except 2 large finely built wells" bears the name of Akir. Jerome adds, "Some think that Accaron is the tower of Strato, afterward called Caesarea." This was perhaps derived from misunderstanding his Jewish instructor . But it shows how entirely all knowledge of Ekron was then lost.
Ashdod - Or Azotus which, at the time when Zephaniah prophesied, held out a twenty-nine years' siege against Psammetichus, is replaced by "a moderate sized village of mud houses, situated on the eastern declivity of a little flattish hill," "entirely modern, not containing a vestige of antiquity." "A beautiful sculptured sarcophagus with some fragments of small marble shafts," "near the Khan on the southwest." belong of course to later times. "The whole south side of the hill appears also, as if it had been once covered with buildings, the stones of which are now thrown together in the rude fences." Its Bishops are mentioned from the Council of Nice to 536 a.d. , and so probably continued until the Muslim devastation. It is not mentioned in the Talmud . Benjamin of Tudela calls it Palmis, and says, "it is desolate, and there are no Jews in it ." : "Neither Ibn Haukal (Yacut), Edrisi, Abulfeda, nor William of Tyre mention it."
Ascalon and Gaza had each a port, Maiuma Gazae, Maiuma Ascalon; literally, "a place on the sea" (an Egyptian name ) belonging to Ascalon or Gaza. The name involves that Ascalon and Gaza themselves, the old Philistine towns, were not on the sea. They were, like Athens, built inland, perhaps (as has been conjectured) from fear of the raids of pirates, or of inroads from those who (like the Philistines themselves probably, or some tribe of them) might come from the sea. The port probably of both was built in much later times; the Egyptian name implies that they were built by Egyptians, after the time when its kings Necos and Apries, (Pharaoh-Necho and Pharaoh-Hophra, who took Gaza Jeremiah 47:1) made Egypt a naval power . This became a characteristic of these Philistine cities. They themselves lay more or less inland, and had a city connected with them of the same name, on the shore. Thus there was an , "Azotus by the sea," and an "Azotus Ispinus." There were "two Iamniae, one inland." But Ashdod lay further from the sea than Gaza; Yamnia, (the Yabneel of Joshua Joshua 15:11, in Uzziah's time, Yabneh 2-Chronicles 26:6) further than Ashdod. The port of Yamnia was burned by Judas (2 Macc. 12:9).
The "name," Maiumas, does not appear until Christian times, though "the port of Gaza" is mentioned by Strabo : to it, Alexander brought from Tyre the machines, with which he took Gaza itself . That port then must have been at some distance from Gaza. Each port became a town, large enough to have, in Christian times, a Bishop of its own. The Epistle of John of Jerusalem, inserted in the Acts of the Council of Constantinople, 536 a.d., written in the name of Palestine i., ii., and iii., is signed by a Bishop of Maiumen of Ascalon, as well as by a Bishop of Ascalon, as it is by a Bishop of Maiumas of Gaza as well as by a Bishop of Gaza. . Yabne, or Yamnia, was on a small eminence , 6 12 hours from the sea .
The Maiumas Gazae became the more known. To it, as being Christian, Constantine gave the right of citizenship, and called it Constantia from his son, making it a city independent of Gaza. Julian the Apostate gave to Gaza (which, though it had Bishops and Martyrs, had a pagan temple at the beginning of the 5th century) its former jurisdiction over it, and though about 20 furlongs off, it was called "the maritime portion of Gaza" . It had thenceforth the same municipal officers; but, "as regards the Church alone," Sozomen adds, "they still appear to be two cities; each has its own Bishop and clergy, and festivals and martyrs, and commemorations of those who had been their Bishops, and 'boundaries of the fields around,' whereby the altars which belong to each Episcopate are parted." The provincial Synod decided against the desire of a Bishop of Gaza, in Sozomen's time, who wished to bring the Clergy of the Maiumites under himself ruling that "although deprived of their civil privileges by a pagan king, they should not be deprived of those of the Church."
In 400 a.d., then, the two cities were distinct, not joined or running into one another.
Jerome mentions it as "Maiumas, the emporium of Gaza, 7 miles from the desert on the way to Egypt by the sea;" Sozomen speaks of "Gaza by the sea, which they also call Maiumas;" Evagrius , "that which they also call Maiumas, which is over against the city Gaza" , "a little city." Mark the deacon, 421 a.d., says , "We sailed to the maritime portion of Gaza, which they call Maiumas," and Antoninus Martyr, about the close of the 6th century , "we came from Ascalon to Mazomates, and came thence, after a mile, to Gaza - that magnificent and lovely city." This perhaps explains how an anonymous Geographer, enumerating the places from Egypt to Tyre, says so distinctly , "after Rinocorura lies the new Gaza, being itself also a city; then the desert Gaza," (writing, we must suppose, after some of the destructions of Gaza); and Jerome could say equally positively ; "The site of the ancient city scarce yields the traces of foundations; but the city now seen was built in another place in lieu of that which fell."
Keith, who in 1844 explored the spot, found widespread traces of some extinct city.
: "At seven furlongs from the sea the manifold but minute remains of an ancient city are yet in many places to be found - Innumerable fragments of broken pottery, pieces of glass, (some beautifully stained) and of polished marble, lie thickly spread in every level and hollow, at a considerable elevation and various distances, on a space of several square miles. In fifty different places they profusely lie, in a level space far firmer than the surrounding sands," "from small patches to more open spaces of twelve or twenty thousand square yards." "The oblong sand-hill, greatly varied in its elevation and of an undulated surface, throughout which they recur, extends to the west and west-southwest. from the sea nearly to the environs of the modern Gaza." "In attempts to cultivate the sand (in 1832) hewn stones were found, near the old port. Remains of an old wall reached to the sea. - Ten large fragments of wall were embedded in the sand. About 2 miles off are fragments of another wall. Four intermediate fountains still exist, nearly entire in a line along the coast, doubtless pertaining to the ancient port of Gaza. For a short distance inland, the debris is less frequent, as if marking the space between it and the ancient city, but it again becomes plentiful in every hollow. About half a mile from the sea we saw three pedestals of beautiful marble. Holes are still to be seen from which hewn stones had been taken."
On the other hand, since the old Ashkelon had, like Gaza, Jamnia, Ashdod, a sea-port town, belonging to it but distinct from itself, (the city itself lying distinct and inland), and since there is no space for two towns distinct from one another, within the circuit of the Ashkelon of the crusades, which is limited by the nature of the ground, there seems to be no choice but that the city of the crusades, and the present skeleton, should have been the Maiumas Ascalon, the sea-port. The change might the more readily take place, since the title "port" was often omitted. The new town obliterated the memory of the old, as Neapelis, Naples, on the shore, has taken place of the inland city (whatever its name was), or Utrecht, it is said, has displaced the old Roman town, the remains of which are three miles off at Vechten , or Sichem is called Neapolis, Nablous, which yet was 3 miles off (Jerome).
Erriha is, probably, at least the second representative of the ancient Jericho; the Jericho of the New Testament, built by Herod, not being the Jericho of the prophets. The Corcyra of Greek history gave its name to the island; it is replaced by a Corfu in a different but near locality, which equally gives its name to the island now. The name of Venetia migrated with the inhabitants of the province, who fled from Attila, some 23 miles, to a few of the islands on the coast, to become again the name of a great republic . In our own country, "old Windsor" is said to have been the residence of the Saxon monarchs; the present Windsor, was originally "new Windsor: old Sarum was the Cathedral city, until the reign of Henry iii: but, as the old towns decayed, the new towns came to be called Windsor, Sarum, though not the towns which first had the name. What is now called Shoreham, not many years ago, was called "new Shoreham," in distinction from the neighboring village .
William of Tyre describes Ashkelon as "situated on the sea-shore, in the form of a semi-circle, whose chord or diameter lies on the sea-shore; but its circumference or arc on the land, looking east. The whole city lies as in a trench, all declining toward the sea, surrounded on all sides by raised mounds, on which are walls with numerous towers of solid masonry, the cement being harder than the stone, with walls of due thickness and of height proportionate; it is surmounted also with outer walls of the same solidity." He then describes its four gates, east-north-south toward Jerusalem, Gaza, Joppa, and the west, called the sea-gate, because "by it the inhabitants have an egress to the sea."
A modern traveler, whose description of the ruins exactly agrees with this, says , "the walls are built on a ridge of rocks that winds round the town in a semicircular direction and terminates at each end in the sea; the ground falls within the walls in the same manner, that it does without, so that no part of it could be seen from the outside of the walls. There is no bay nor shelter for shipping, but a small harbor advancing a little way into the town toward its eastern extremity seems to have been formed for the accommodation of such small craft as were used in the better days of the city." The harbor, moreover, was larger during the crusades, and enabled Ascalon to receive supplies of corn from Egypt and thereby to protract its siege. Sultan Bibars filled up the port and cast stones into the sea, 1270 a.d., and destroyed the remains of the fortifications, for fear that the Franks, after their treaty with the king of Tunis, should bring back their forces against Islamism and establish themselves there . Yet Abulfeda, who wrote a few years later, calls it "one of the Syrian ports of Islam" .
This city, so placed on the sea, and in which too the sea enters, cannot be the Ashkelon, which had a port, which was a town distinct from it. The Ascalon of the Philistines, which existed down into Christian times, must have been inland.
Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century who had been on the spot, and who is an accurate eyewitness , says, "From Ashdod are two parasangs to Ashkelonah ; this is new Ashkelon which Ezra the priest built on the sea-shore, and they at first called it Benibra . Jerome has another Benamerium, north of Zoar, now N'mairah. Tristram land of Moab p. 57.
A well in Ascalon is mentioned by Eusebius. "There are many wells (named) in Scripture and are yet shewn in the country of Gerar, and at Ascalon." v. φρέαρ phrear. William of Tyre says: "It has no fountains, either within the compass of the walls, or near it; but it abounds in wells, both within and without, which supply palatable water, fit for drinking. For greater caution the inhabitants had built some cisterns within, to receive rain-water. Benj. of T. also says, "There in the midst of the city is a well which they call Beer Ibrahim-al-khalil (the well of Abraham the friend (of God)) which he dug in the days of the Philistines." Keith mentions "20 fountains of excellent water opened up anew by Ibrahim Pasha." p. 274), and it is distant from the old Ashkelon, which is desolate, four parasangs. "When the old Ashkelon perished, is unknown. If, as seems probable from some of the antiquities dug up, the Ashkelon, at which Herod was born and which he beautified, was the seaport town, commerce probably attracted to it gradually the inhabitants of the neighboring town of Ascalon, as the population of the Piraeus now exceeds that of Athens.
The present Ashkelon is a ghastly skeleton; all the frame-work of a city, but none there. "The soil is good," but the "peasants who cultivate it" prefer living outside in a small village of mud-huts, exposed to winds and sand-storms, because they think that God has abandoned it, and that evil spirits (the Jan and the Ghul) dwell there .
Even the remains of antiquity, where they exist, belong to later times. A hundred men excavated in Ashkelon for 14 days in hopes of finding treasure there. They dug 18 feet below the surface, and fouud marble shafts, a Corinthian capital, a colossal statue with a Medusa's head on its chest, a marble pavement and white-marble pedestal . The excavation reached no Philistine Ashkelon.
"Broken pottery," "pieces of glass," "fragments of polished marble," "of ancient columns, cornices etc." were the relics of a Greek Gaza.
Though then it is a superfluity of fulfillment, and what can be found belongs to a later city, still what can be seen has an impressive correspondence with the words Gaza is "forsaken;" for there are miles of fragments of some city connected with Gaza. The present Gaza occupies the southern half of a hill built with stone for the Moslem conquerors of Palestine. : "Even the traces of its former existence, its vestiges of antiquity, are very rare; occasional columns of marble or gray granite, scattered in the streets and gardens, or used as thresholds at the gates and doors of houses, or laid upon the front of watering-troughs. One fine Corinthian capital of white marble lies inverted in the middle of the street." These belong then to times later than Alexander, since whose days the very site of Gaza must have changed its aspect.
Ashkelon shall be a desolation - The site of the port of Ascalon was well chosen, strong, overhanging the sea, fenced from the land, stretching forth its arms toward the Mediterranean, as if to receive in its bosom the wealth of the sea, yet shunned by the poor hinds around it. It lies in such a living death, that it is "one of the most mournful scenes of utter desolation" which a traveler "even in this land of ruins ever beheld." But this too cannot be the Philistine city. The sands which are pressing hard upon the solid walls of the city, held back by them for the time, yet threatening to overwhelm "the spouse of Syria," and which accumulated in the plain below, must have buried the old Ashkelon, since in this land, where the old names so cling to the spot, there is no trace of it.
Ekron shall be uprooted - And at Akir and Esdud "celebrated at present, for its scorpions," the few stones, which remain, even of a later town, are but as gravestones to mark the burial place of departed greatness.
Jerome: "In like way, all who glory in bodily strength and worldly power and say, "By the strength of my hand I have done it," shall be left desolate and brought to nothing in the day of the Lord's anger." And "the waster," they who by evil words and deeds injure or destroy others and are an offence unto them, these shall be east out shamefully, into outer darkness, Rup.: "when the saints shall receive the fullest brightness" in the 'mid-day' of the Sun of Righteousness. The judgment shall not be in darkness, save to them, but in mid-day, so that the justice of God shall be clearly seen, and darkness itself shall be turned into light, as was said to David, "Thou didst this thing secretly, but I will do it before all Israel and before the sun" 2-Samuel 12:12; and our Lord, "Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops" Luke 12:3; and Paul, "the Lord shall come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart" 1-Corinthians 4:5. And "they who by seducing words in life or in doctrine uprooted others, shall be themselves rooted up" Matthew 15:13.
Gaza shall be forsaken - This prophecy is against the Philistines. They had been greatly harassed by the kings of Egypt; but were completely ruined by Nebuchadnezzar, who took all Phoenicia from the Egyptians; and about the time of his taking Tyre, devastated all the seignories of the Philistines. This ruin we have seen foretold by the other prophets, and have already remarked its exact fulfillment.
For (c) Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted up.
(c) He comforts the faithful in that God would change his punishments from them to the Philistines their enemies, and other nations.
For Gaza shall be forsaken,.... Therefore seek the Lord; and not to the Philistines, since they would be destroyed, to whom Gaza, and the other cities later mentioned, belonged; so Aben Ezra connects the words, suggesting that it would be in vain to flee thither for shelter, or seek for refuge there; though others think that this and what follows is subjoined, either to assure the Jews of their certain ruin, since this would be the case of the nations about them; or to alleviate their calamity, seeing their enemies would have no occasion to insult them, and triumph over them, they being, or quickly would be, in the like circumstances. Gaza was one of the five lordships of the Philistines; a strong and fortified place, as its name signifies; but should be demolished, stripped of its fortifications, and forsaken by its inhabitants. It was smitten by Pharaoh king of Egypt; and was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 47:1 and afterwards taken by Alexander the great; and, having gone through various changes, was in the times of the apostles called Gaza the desert, Acts 8:26. There is a beautiful play on words in the words, not to be expressed in an English translation (h). According to Strabo's account (i), the ancient city was about a mile from the haven, for which (he says) it was formerly very illustrious; but was demolished by Alexander, and remained a desert. And so Jerom (k) says, in his time, the place where the ancient city stood scarce afforded any traces of the foundations of it; for that which now is seen (adds he) was built in another place, instead of that which was destroyed: and which, he observes, accounts for the fulfilment of this prophecy: and so Monsieur Thevenot (l) says, the city of Gaza is about two miles from the sea; and was anciently very illustrious, as may be seen by its ruins; and yet, even this must be understood of new Gaza; so a Greek writer (m), of an uncertain age, observes this distinction; and speaks of this and the following places exactly in the order in which they are here,
"after Rhinocorura lies new Gaza, which is the city itself; then "Gaza the desert" (the place here prophesied of); then the city Askelon; after that Azotus (or Ashdod); then the city Accaron'' (or Ekron):
and Ashkelon a desolation; this was another lordship belonging to the Philistines, that suffered at the same time as Gaza did by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 47:5. This place was ten miles from Gaza, as Mr. Sandys (n) says, and who adds, and now of no note; and Strabo (o) speaks of it in his time as a small city; indeed new Ashkelon is said by Benjamin of Tudela (p) to be a very large and beautiful city; but then he distinguishes it from old Ashkelon, here prophesied of; and which (he says) is four "parsoe", or sixteen miles, from the former, and now lies waste and desolate:
they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, that is, the Chaldeans shall drive out the inhabitants of Ashdod, another of the principalities of the Philistines; the same with Azotus, Acts 8:40 "at noon day", openly and publicly, and with great ease; they shall have no occasion to use any secret stratagems, or to make night work of it; and which would be very incommodious and distressing to the inhabitants, to be turned out at noon day, and be obliged to travel in the heat of the sun, which in those eastern countries at noon day beats very strong. This place was distant from old Ashkelon four "parsae", or twenty four miles, as Benjamin Tudelensis (q) affirms; and with which agrees Diodorus Siculus (r), who says, that from Gaza to Azotus are two hundred and seventy furlongs, which make thirty four miles, ten from Gaza to Ashkelon, and twenty four from thence to Azotus or Ashdod. This place, according to the above Jewish traveller (s), is now called Palmis, which he says is the Ashdod that belonged to the Philistines, now waste and desolate; by which this prophecy is fulfilled. It was once a very large and famous city, strong and well fortified; and held out a siege of twenty nine years against Psamittichus king of Egypt, as Herodotus (t) relates, but now destroyed; see Isaiah 20:1,
and Ekron shall be rooted up; as a tree is rooted up, and withers away, and perishes, and there is no more hope of it: this denotes the utter destruction of this place. There is here also an elegant allusion to the name of the place (u), not to be imitated in a version of it: this was another of the lordships of the Philistines, famous for the idol Beelzebub, the god of this place. Jerom (w) observes, that some think that Accaron (or Ekron) is the same with Strato's tower, afterwards called Caesarea; and so the Talmudists say (x), Ekron is Caesarea; which is not at all probable: he further observes, that there is a large village of the Jews, which in his days was called Accaron, and lay between Azotus and Jamnia to the east; but Breidenbachius (y) relates, that, in his time, Accaron was only a small cottage or hut, yet retaining its ancient name; so utterly rooted up is this place, which once was a considerable principality. Gath is not mentioned, which is the other of the five principalities, because it was now, as Kimchi says, in the hands of the kings of Judah.
(h) . (i) Geograph. l. 16. p. 502. (k) De locis Hebraicis, fol. 91. K. (l) Travels, par. 1. B. 2. c. 36. p. 180. (m) Apud Reland. Palestina Illustrata, l. 2. p. 509. (n) Travels, p. 151. (o) Geograph. l. 16. p. 502. (p) Itinorarium, p. 51. (q) Ibid. (r) Bibliothec. l. 19. p. 723. (s) Itinerarium, p. 51. (t) Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 157. (u) . (w) De locis Hebrews. fol. 88. D. (x) T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 6. 1. (y) Apud Adrichom. Theatrum Terrae Sanctae, p. 20.
Those are really in a woful condition who have the word of the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. God will restore his people to their rights, though long kept from them. It has been the common lot of God's people, in all ages, to be reproached and reviled. God shall be worshipped, not only by all Israel, and the strangers who join them, but by the heathen. Remote nations must be reckoned with for the wrongs done to God's people. The sufferings of the insolent and haughty in prosperity, are unpitied and unlamented. But all the desolations of flourishing nations will make way for the overturning Satan's kingdom. Let us improve our advantages, and expect the performance of every promise, praying that our Father's name may be hallowed every where, over all the earth.
For--He makes the punishment awaiting the neighboring states an argument why the ungodly should repent (Zephaniah 2:1) and the godly persevere, namely, that so they may escape from the general calamity.
Gaza shall be forsaken--In the Hebrew there is a play of similar sounds, Gaza Gazubah; Gaza shall be forsaken, as its name implies. So the Hebrew of the next clause, Ekron teeakeer.
at the noonday--when on account of the heat Orientals usually sleep, and military operations are suspended (2-Samuel 4:5). Hence an attack at noon implies one sudden and unexpected (Jeremiah 6:4-5; Jeremiah 15:8).
Ekron--Four cities of the Philistines are mentioned, whereas five was the normal number of their leading cities. Gath is omitted, being at this time under the Jews' dominion. David had subjugated it (1-Chronicles 18:1). Under Joram the Philistines almost regained it (2-Chronicles 21:16), but Uzziah (2-Chronicles 26:6) and Hezekiah (2-Kings 18:8) having conquered them, it remained under the Jews. Amos 1:6; Zac 9:5-6; Jeremiah 25:20, similarly mention only four cities of the Philistines.
Destruction of the Philistines. - Zephaniah 2:4. "For Gaza will be forgotten, and Ashkelon become a desert; Ashdod, they drive it out in broad day, and Ekron will be ploughed out. Zephaniah 2:5. Woe upon the inhabitants of the tract by the sea, the nation of the Cretans! The word of Jehovah upon you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines! I destroy thee, so that not an inhabitant remains. Zephaniah 2:6. And the tract by the sea becomes pastures for shepherds' caves, and for folds of sheep. Zephaniah 2:7. And a tract will be for the remnant of the house of Judah; upon them will they feed: in the houses of Ashkelon they encamp in the evening; for Jehovah their God will visit them, and turn their captivity." The fourth verse, which is closely connected by kı̄ (for) with the exhortation to repentance, serves as an introduction to the threat of judgment commencing with hōi in Zephaniah 2:5. As the mentioning of the names of the four Philistian capitals (see at Joshua 13:3) is simply an individualizing periphrasis for the Philistian territory and people, so the land and people of Philistia are mentioned primarily for the purpose of individualizing, as being the representatives of the heathen world by which Judah was surrounded; and it is not till afterwards, in the further development of the threat, that the enumeration of certain near and remote heathen nations is appended, to express more clearly the idea of the heathen world as a whole. Of the names of the Philistian cities Zephaniah makes use of two, ‛Azzâh and ‛Eqrōn, as a play upon words, to express by means of paronomasia the fate awaiting them. ‛azzâh, Gaza, will be ‛azûbhâh, forsaken, desolate. ‛Eqrōn, Ekron, will be tē‛âqēr, rooted up, torn out of its soil, destroyed. To the other two he announces their fate in literal terms, the shemâmâh threatened against Ashkelon corresponding to the ‛ăzūbhâh, and the gârēsh predicated of Ashdod preparing the way for Ekron's tē‛âqēr. בּצּהרים at noon, i.e., in broad day, might signify, when used as an antithesis to night, "with open violence" (Jerome, Kimchi); but inasmuch as the expulsion of inhabitants is not effected by thieves in the night, the time of noon is more probably to be understood, as v. Clln and Rosenmller suppose, as denoting the time of day at which men generally rest in hot countries (2-Samuel 4:5), in the sense of unexpected, unsuspected expulsion; and this is favoured by Jeremiah 15:8, where the devastation at noon is described as a sudden invasion. The omission of Gath may be explained in the same manner as in Amos 1:6-8, from the fact that the parallelism of the clauses only allowed the names of four cities to be given; and this number was amply sufficient to individualize the whole, just as Zephaniah, when enumerating the heathen nations, restricts the number to four, according to the four quarters of the globe: viz., the Philistines in the west (Zephaniah 2:5-7); the Moabites and Ammonites comprised in one in the east (Zephaniah 2:8-10); the Cushites in the south (Zephaniah 2:11, Zephaniah 2:12); and Asshur, with Nineveh, in the north (north-east), (Zephaniah 2:13-15). The woe with which the threat is commenced in Zephaniah 2:5 applies to the whole land and people of the Philistines. Chebhel, the measure, then the tract of land measured out or apportioned (see at Deuteronomy 3:4; Deuteronomy 32:9, etc.). The tract of the sea is the tract of land by the Mediterranean Sea which was occupied by the Philistines (chebhel hayyâm = 'erets Pelishtı̄m). Zephaniah calls the inhabitants gōi Kerēthı̄m, nation of the Cretans, from the name of one branch of the Philistian people which was settled in the south-west of Philistia, for the purpose of representing them as a people devoted to kârath, or extermination. The origin of this name, which is selected both here and in Ezekiel 25:16 with a play upon the appellative signification, is involved in obscurity; for, as we have already observed at 1-Samuel 30:14, there is no valid authority for the derivation which is now current, viz., from the island of Crete (see Stark, Gaza, pp. 66 and 99ff.). דּבר יי עליכם forms an independent sentence: The word of the Lord cometh over you. The nature of that word is described in the next sentence: I will destroy thee. The name Kena‛an is used in the more limited sense of Philistia, and is chosen to indicate that Philistia is to share the lot of Canaan, and lose its inhabitants by extermination.
For - It is time to seek God; for your neighbours, as well as you, shall be destroyed. Gaza - A chief city of the Philistines. They - The Babylonians. Shall drive - Into captivity. At the noon day - It shall be taken by force at noon.
*More commentary available at chapter level.