I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, And him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; And I will turn my hand against Ekron; And the remnant of the Philistines will perish," says the Lord Yahweh.
"And the remnant of the Philistines shall perish ..." Here too, some scholars allege that all of Philistia had already perished, with the exception of a small remnant.  This too is a gross error.  "The expression `the remnant of the Philistines' indicates that a portion of them had already been destroyed."[29]  Such comment only exposes the unwillingness of unbelieving scholars to accept any such thing as predictive prophecy; and that is a theological position which we are absolutely unwilling to share.  The arguments in support of it, such as those grounded in these verses, are weak, unreasonable, and trifling.  The awful prophecies of the destruction of Syria and Philistia, uttered in the solemn name of God himself, as repeatedly affirmed by Amos, appeared to the people who received them, not as belated predictions of events which had already occurred, but as events impossible of ever happening at all!