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.
Ashkelon is mentioned as a place of strength, taken by the great conqueror, Raamses II. Its resolute defense and capture are represented, with its name as a city of Canaanites, on a monument of Karnac . Its name most naturally signifies “hanging.” This suits very well with the site of its present ruins, which “hang” on the side of the theater or arc of hills, whose base is the sea. This, however, probably was not its ancient site (see the note at Zephaniah 2:4). Its name occurs in the wars of the Maccabees, but rather as submitting readily (1 Macc. 10:86; 11:60). Perhaps the inhabitants had been changed in the intervening period. Antipater, the Edomite father of Herod, courted, we are told , “the Arabs and the Ascalonites and the Gazites.” “Toward the Jews their neighbors, the inhabitants of the Holy land,” Philo says to the Roman emperor, “the Ascalonites have an irreconcilable aversion, which will come to no terms.” This abiding hatred burst out at the beginning of the war with the Romans, in which Jerusalem perished. The Ascalonites massacred 2500 Jews dwelling among them . The Jews “fired Ascalon and utterly destroyed Gaza” .