PHILISTINES were the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, well known in sacred history. These people are sometimes called in Scripture Cherethites and Caphtorim. The earlier part of their history is, like that of most other nations, very obscure and uncertain. The authors of the Universal[7:17:351] History inform us that they were descended partly from the Casluhim, and partly from the Caphtorim, both being of the progeny of Mizraim, the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Moses tells us that they drove out the Avim or Avites even to Azzah or Gazah, where they settled; but when this happened cannot be determined. Upon the whole, however, our learned authors are clearly of opinion, that the Casluhim and Caphtorim, from whom the Philistines were descended, came originally from Egypt, and called the country which they had conquered by their own name. Many interpreters, however, think that Caphtor was but another name for Cappadocia, which they imagine to have been the original country of the Philistines. But Calmet, in a particular dissertation prefixed to the first book of Samuel, endeavours to show that they were originally from the island of Crete. The reasons which led him to think that Caphtor is the island of Crete may be shortly stated. The Philistines were strangers in Palestine, as appears from various parts of Scripture; and hence the Septuagint always translate this name strangers. Their proper name was Cherethim; for Ezekiel, speaking against the Philistines, says, “I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethim, and destroy the remnant of the sea-coast.” Zephaniah, inveighing against the same people, says, “Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea-coasts, the nation of the Cherethites.” And Samuel says, that the Amalekites made an irruption into the country of the Cherethites, that is, of the Philistines, as the sequel of the discourse plainly proves. The kings of Judah had afterwards foreign guards called the Cherethites and Pelethites, who appear to have been Philistines. The Septnagint, under the name of Cherethites, understood the Cretans; and by Cherith they understood Crete. Besides, the Scripture says that the Philistines came from the isle of Caphtor. Now we know of no island in the Mediterranean in which the marks whereby the Scripture describes Caphtor and Cherethim agree better than in the island of Crete. The name Cretim or Cherethim is the same with that of Cretenses; and the Cretans are a most ancient and celebrated people, who inhabited the islands of the Mediterranean, pretending to have been originally produced out of their own soil. This island was well peopled in the time of the Trojan war. Homer calls it the island of the hundred cities. The city of Gaza in Palestine went by the name of Minoa, because Minos, king of Crete, coming into that country, called this ancient city by his own name.

Herodotus acknowledges that the Cretans were originally barbarians, and did not come from Greece. Homer says, that a different language was spoken in the island of Crete; that there were Greeks there, but also true or ancient Cretans, and Pelasgians. The ancient Cretans are the same as the Cherethites, and the Pelasgians as the Philistines or Pelethites of the Scripture. Their language was the same with that of the Canaanites or Phoenicians, that is, Hebrew; and they were descended, as well as Canaan, from Ham, by Mizraim. The manners, arms, religion, and gods of the Cretans and Philistines were the same. Both used only bows and arrows; and Dagon the god of the Philistines was the same as the Dictymna of the Cretans.

Whether these arguments are convincing, it is not for us to determine. Wells does not think they are, being of the same opinion with the authors of the Universal History, who say that Coptus, the name of an old city of Egypt, is a corruption of the ancient Caphtor. It is not, however, of great importance to determine whether they came from Crete, from Cappadocia, or from Egypt. They had certainly been a considerable time in the land of Canaan when Abraham arrived there in the Jyear of the world 2083. They were then a very powerful people, governed by kings, and in possession of several considerable cities. The race of kings then in power were honoured with the title of Abimelech. This race, however, was of short duration; for their monarchy became an aristocracy of five lords, who, as far as we can discover,∣were partly independent of one another, though they acted in concert for the common cause. This form of government was again succeeded by another race of kings, distinguished by the title of Achish, though they also bore that of Abimelech. The kings were always subjected to great limitations. The Philistines appear to have been a very warlike people, industrious, and lovers of freedom; they did not circumcise, and in the early periods of their history held adultery in the greatest abhorrence. “Their character,” say the authors of the Universal History, “must be considered at different periods; for we may say they were not always the same people. In the days of Abraham and Isaac, they were without all doubt a righteous and hospitable nation; but afterwards a revolution in government, religion, and morals, may have ensued. From thenceforward they became like the other idolatrous nations; the same enormities crept in and prevailed amongst them. They are constantly mentioned in Scripture as strangers; and though possessed of a very considerable part of the Land of Promise, yet God would never suffer them to be driven out, they being Egyptians by descent, and not original natives, whose land only was promised to Abraham and his seed. Their arrogance and ambition were great; and so irreconcileable was their enmity to the Israelites,^[1. “From a passage in Chronicles, where it is said, that ‘ the men of Gath slew the children of Ephraim, who would have taken their cattle from them,’ it is guessed to have been of very ancient date. This incident is nowhere else to be found; and there are various notions concerning the sense in which we must take this passage. As to the time of the transaction, most people allow it to have been while the children of Israel were sojourners in Egypt. It plainly appears, by the next verse, that Ephraim himself was living at that period. _ The Targum supposes his children miscomputed the time they were to serve in Egypt, and began too early an attempt upon their promised land.” . ] that one would be almost tempted to think they were created on purpose to be a thorn in their sides; for though the hand of God was evidently against them several times, and particularly when they detained the ark, yet they hardened their hearts and closed their eyes against conviction. They seem to have entertained a very great veneration for their deities, in which they persisted, though they were eye-witnesses of the shame and ignominy which befell them in the presence of the captive ark; nay, they were so biassed in their favour, as to imagine that their gods might prevail against Him who had in so glaring a manner put them to shame and disgrace. They were much, engaged in trade, which, considering their situation, they may have exercised from the beginning; but, by the accession of the fugitive Edomites in David’s time, they rose to so great a reputation as merchants, that the Greeks, it seems, preferred them to all other nations in that respect, and from them called all the country bordering upon theirs Palestine. Their language was not so different from that spoken by the Hebrews as to cause any difficulty for them to converse together, as will be perceived by their intercourse with Abraham and Isaac; so that, in all this region, the several nations spoke one and the same tongue, perhaps with some variation of dialect. They had doubtless the arts and sciences in common with the most learned and ingenious amongst their contemporaries, and perhaps some of them in greater perfection. They had giants amongst them; but whether these were originally of the breed of the Anakim, who retired hither when they were expelled from Hebron, or were sprung from accidental births, is not easily determined. We must not forget, that the invention of the bow and arrow is ascribed to this people.
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“Their religion was different at different times; under their first race of kings, they used the same rites with the Hebrews. Abimelech, in the sin he had like to have committed with Sarah, through Abraham’s timidity, was favoured with a divine admonition from God; and, by his speech and behaviour at that time, it seems as if he had been used to converse with the Deity. In after times, they fell into endless superstitions, and different kinds of idolatry; nay, each of the principal or five cities seemed to have an idol of its own. Marna, Marnas, or Marnash, was worshipped at Gaza, and is said to have migrated into Crete, and to have become the Cretan Jupiter. Dagon was worshipped at Azotus; he seems to have been the greatest, the most ancient, and most favourite god they had; to which may be added, that he perhaps subsisted the longest of any that did not straggle out of the country. To him they ascribed the invention of bread-corn, or of agriculture, as his name imports. We cannot enter into the common notion of his being represented as a monster, half man, half fish; nor consequently into another, almost as common, that he is the same with the Syrian goddess Derceto, who, we are told, was represented under some such mixed form. Our opinion is, that this idol was in shape wholly like a man; for we read of his head, his hands, and his feet. He stood in a temple at Azotus, and had priests of his own, who paid him a very constant attendance. Next to Dagon was Baalzebub, the god of Ekron. In the text of the New Testament he is called Beelzebub, and the ‘ prince of devils.’ His name is rendered lord of flies, which by some is held to be a mock appellation bestowed on him by the Jews; but others think him so styled by his worshippers, as Hercules Apomyios and others were, from his driving those insects away; and urge, that Ahaziah, in his sickness, would scarcely have applied to him, if his name had carried in it any reproach. But it must be remembered, it is the sacred historian that makes use of that contemptuous term in derision; whereas the idolatrous monarch, who was one of his votaries, might call him by his common name, supposed to have been Baal-zeboath, ’ the lord of armies,’ or Baal-shamin, ’ lord of heaven,’ or some other bordering on Baal-zebub. How or under what form he was represented is uncertain. Some place him on a throne, and attire him like a king; others paint him as a fly. Not to dwell on this obscurity, it appears that he became an oracle of the highest repute for omniscience and veracity; that he had priests of his own; and that he, in the middle times at least, was much sought after by those who were anxious about futurity. Derceto we take certainly to have been the goddess of Ascalon; but we are supported by profane authority, without the least countenance from Scripture. Gath is seemingly the only city of all the five unprovided with a deity; wherefore, as the Scripture declares, that Ashtaroth, or Astarte, was worshipped by this people, we are ready to place her at Gath, and the rather, as this of all their cities may have had most communication with Sidon. To speak in general concerning their religious rites and ceremonies, which is all we can do, they seem to have erected very large and spacious temples, or very wide halls, for the celebration of their solemn seasons and festivals (for such they surely had); their religious offices were attended with much pomp, and a great concourse from all parts; and they presented their gods with the chief part of their spoil, and carried them about with them when they went to war. We do not find in Scripture that they sacrificed their children; and yet the Curetes are said to be their descendants.”

With respect to the history of this extraordinary people, we find from the above extract, that they were not comprehended in the number of nations devoted to extermination, and whose territory the Lord had abandoned to the Hebrews; nor were they of the cursed seed of Canaan. However, Joshua did not forbear to give their lands to the Hebrews, and to set upon them by command of the Lord, because they possessed a country which was promised to the people of God. But these conquests of Joshua must have been ill maintained, since under the Judges, under Saul, and at the beginning of the reign of David, the Philistines oppressed the Israelites. It is true that Shamgar, Samson, Samuel, and Saul, made head against them, but did not reduce their power; and they continued independent down to the reign of David, who subjected thereto his government.

They remained in subjection to the kings of Judah down to the reign of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, that is, for about 246 years. However, Jehoram made war against them, and probably reduced them to obedience; because it is observed in Scripture that they revolted again under Uzziah, and that this prince kept them to their duty during the remainder of his reign. During the unfortunate reign of Ahaz, the Philistines made great havoc in the territories of Judah; but his son and successor Hezekiah subdued them. Lastly, they regained their full liberty under the latter kings of Judah; and, by the menaces denounced against them by the prophets Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we find that they had brought a thousand hardships and calamities upon the children of Israel, for which cruelties God threatened to punish them. Esarhaddon besieged Ashdod or Azoth, and took it; and, according to Herodotus, Psammeticus king of Egypt took the same city, after a siege of twenty-nine years. There is great probability that Nebuchadnezzar, when he subdued the Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and other nations bordering upon the Jews, also reduced the Philistines. After this, they fell under the dominion of the Persians, and then under that of Alexander the Great, who destroyed the city of Gaza, the only city of Phoenicia which ventured to oppose him. After the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Asmonaeans subjected to their sway several cities of the Philistines; and Tryphon gave to Jonathan Maccabaeus the government of the whole coast of the Mediterranean, from Tyre as far as Egypt, thus including all the country of the Philistines.