About Philistia
47
📚The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza. 2 📚“Thus says the LORD:See, waters are rising up out
of the north,
and will become an overflowing flood,
and they will overflow the land
and all that is in it,
the city and those who live in it.
Then the men will cry out,
and all the inhabitants
of the land will wail.
3 📚At the noise of the stamping hooves
of his strong horses,
at the rushing of his chariots,
and at the rumbling
of his wheels,
the fathers will not look back
for their children
because their hands will be feeble,
4 📚because of the day that is coming
to destroy all the Philistines,
and to cut off from Tyre and Sidon
every helper who remains.
For the LORD will destroy the Philistines,
the remainder of the country of Caphtor.
47:4 Caphtor is probably the island in the Mediterranean Sea called Crete today. Tyre and Sidon were important cities on the coast north of the Philistines.⚜
5 📚A shaven head has come on Gaza;
Ashkelon is cut off with the rest
of their valley.
How long will you cut yourself?
47:5 Gaza and Ashkelon were two of the most important Philistine cities.⚜
6 📚O sword of the LORD,
how long will it be before
you are quiet?
Put yourself away in your scabbard;
rest, and be still.
7 📚How can it be quiet, since the LORD has
given it a command against Ashkelon,
and against the seashore?
There he has appointed it to work”.
47:1-7 The Philistines lived along the coast of the land of Canaan and were enemies of Israel throughout much of their history up to the time of the Babylonian invasion. For other messages concerning them see Isa 14:28-32; Ezek 25:15-17; Amos 1:6-8; Zeph 2:4-7; Zech 9:5-7. God decided to completely obliterate these people from the land of Canaan. They have passed out of existence. There is no mention of them in the New Testament.⚜