PHILISTINES
Philistines as well established in their country before the Exodus (Ex 13! 1514 23%, Jos 13-8 etc.). Whether they believed that the Philistines were in the land in the time of Abraham and Isaac is not so certain. They designate as Philistine both the land and the people of that date (Gn 215% 26}. 8 14. 15.18), but it is easy to understand this as a mere geographical use of the term, or as proleptical. On the other hand, however, these Philistines are described as a military people (Gn 215" 83 9658), and as having other resemblances to the Philistines of later times; and the proofs that the Philistine migration had not begun as early as the time of Abraham are not so decisive as many imagine.
Whenever the Philistine settlements began, they probably began on a relatively small scale. The immigrants came in successive expeditions, and not all at once. In certain matters the accepted the conditions of life which they foun on the soil. They became owners of cattle if the people whom they conquered were owners of cattle, and raisers of crops if the conquered were agricul- tural people. If they conquered Egyptian tribu- taries, ney accepted the suzerainty without which Egypt would have forthwith expelled them. They seem to have accepted the Semitic names of the cities they conquered. At all events, Gaza, Gath, Ashkelon, and several other cities of the region were known by the names still familiar to us, as early as the time of Amenhotep m1. of Egypt (Tel el-Amarna letters). There were of them more men than women, and the marrying of native wives began at once. Their peculiar political organization, that of the séranim, presumably grew op upon the soil. From the time of Ramses II.
ey were pbey driven from the sea, isolated from their Greek kindred, and compelled to become @ non-maritime people. Through these various ehanges of blood, institutions, government, and external relations, they became at length differ- entiated as a people by themselves.
The accounts of the conquest by Joshua make the impression that the Philistines were then in their five central cities, but that there were also in the region several independent petty Canaanitish kingdoms; that Israel at that time conquered most of the Canaanite kingdoms, although it failed to permanently | hold some of them (Jos 10%: 4 113. 8.16 1012 158-47 163-10 etc.); but did not conquer the Philistine cities (Jos 13%%), though Ekron, Ashdod, and Gaza are by the tenure of
romise included in the inheritance of Judah (Jos
5-47 13%), It is said that Judah, after Joshua’s death, conquered Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron (Jg 18), but that the Philistine cities were inde- pendent when the struggle of the conquest came
an end (Jg 3}.
The biblical records signalize four periods of oppression of Israel by the Philistines. The first is that in which Shamgar was the deliverer (Jg 3" 10"). This was in the time of the twenty years’ oppression by Jabin and Sisera (Jg 45." δ᾽ 7),
esumably, a generation or two of prosperity had raised Israel to a position where he was formidable to his neighbours, and so a coalition was formed against him by the Philistines and the many peoples of the north. The Philistine pressure was mainly felt by Judah and Simeon, and it
account for the absence of these two from rah’s roll-call of the tribes that marched against Jabin. We have no details of the Phil- istine operations, but there is a suggestion of a disarmament of their enemies, like that which was practised afterwards in the time of Saul (Jg 351 58).*
The second Philistine oppression of Israel is that mentioned in Jg 1057 as occurring before the
* Moore (Judges, pp. 80, 105 es that Shamgar a) rs too quail ἐγ άπ τοῦ panto ee ‘hilistines. x
PHILISTINES 84)
eighteen years of oppression by the Ammonites. Contrary to common opinion, the writer of this article holds that this was the oppression in which Samson distinguished himself (Jg 13*-16). It began, EEpeently, before Samson’s birth (Jg 13°), whiie ola was judge. In the time of Samson’s wild youth it was so thoroughly a recognized fact (144 154) that it did not prevent relations between Israelite and Philistine families. It ceased when Samson was made judge, after the battle of Lehi (15%), During the twenty years of his public life, the Philistines kept on their own side of the border (16), even when plotting against him.
The third Philistine oppression was the one that lasted through the forty years that Eli was judge (1S 438, here regarded as corresponding to Jg 13} and the twenty years that followed (1S 7%). After the first horrors of conquest were over, the Israelites seem to have prospered under the yoke, if we may judge of the population by the size of the armies (1 S 45 911° 154). This oppression ceased after Samuel became judge (1S 774). He defeated the Philistines in a decisive battle. He compelled them to surrender the cities in their country that belonged to Israel, that is, apparently, those that had formerly been Canaanite, and had been conquered by Israel. ‘And the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coasts of Israel; and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines’ as long as Samuel remained chief magistrate of Israel, a statement not incon- sistent with 10° 13% 1%,