The Philistines by V. Phillips Long

Archaeological excavations, however, and indeed the Bible itself, hardly justify calling the Philistines uncultured. A careful reading of the biblical texts suggests not so much that the Philistines lack culture—in many respects their material culture surpasses Israel’s—as that they are staunch enemies of Israel and, by extension, of Israel’s God.¹ They are, to use the biblical censure, the "uncircumcised" (e.g., 1 Sam. 14:6; 17:26, 36; 31:4; 2 Sam. 1:20). They are the quintessential foreign adversary, a fact that may be reflected in LXX’s rendering of the word "Philistine" most often simply as allophylos ("foreigner, Gentile, heathen, pagan").²

The Philistines are reasonably well attested in extrabiblical ancient Near Eastern literature, the earliest known references coming from the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses III (c. 1184–1153 B.C.). Inscribed on the walls of his temple at Medinet Habu in Thebes is an account of a war he fought against various Sea Peoples, among whom the Philistines are included: "Their confederation was the Philistines, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denye(n), and Weshesh, lands united."³ According to Ramesses III’s inscription, "The foreign countries made a conspiracy in their islands," and they proved almost an irresistible force as they migrated into the eastern Mediterranean: "No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Kode, Carchemish," and so on.⁴

It was a different story, however, when they approached Egypt: "Those who reached my frontier, their seed is not, their heart and their soul are finished forever and ever."⁵ The walls of the temple at Medinet Habu celebrate Ramesses III’s victory over the Sea Peoples not only verbally but visually, as in the wall relief shown in the accompanying picture (the Philistine warriors can be identified by their characteristic headdress).

The Philistines are also frequently mentioned in eighth- and seventh-century Assyrian records, the earliest reference coming from an account of a north-to-south expedition down along the eastern Mediterranean by Adad-Nirari III (810–783 B.C.): "I subdued from the bank of the Euphrates, the land of Hatti, the land of Amurru in its entirety, the land of Tyre, the land of Sidon, the land of Israel (Humri), the land of Edom, the land of Philistia, as far as the great sea in the west."⁶ Under Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 B.C.), Assyria reduced Philistia to tributary status, along with Judah and other neighboring states.⁷

While the Philistines loom large in both the biblical record—particularly the Samson narratives (Judg. 13–16) and 1–2 Samuel—and ancient Near Eastern texts, the question of their origin remains something of a mystery.⁸ The general view is that the Philistines, along with other Sea Peoples, migrated in large numbers from "the islands and coastlands of the Aegean Sea, including the island of Crete,"⁹ as part of a general social upheaval that characterized the latter part of the second millennium B.C.

The Bible confirms the Philistines’ association with the Aegean and with Crete (biblical Caphtor; Jer. 47:4; Amos 9:7), but this may not be the end—or, more precisely, the beginning—of their story. The Table of Nations in Genesis 10 ties the Philistines to the little known Casluhites (10:14), who "may have been the Philistines’ progenitors before the Philistines went to Caphtor."¹⁰ Furthermore, the Table of Nations traces the Philistines back to Noah’s son Ham (forbear of, among others, the Canaanites) and not to his son Japheth (forbear of the Indo-Europeans associated with the Aegean). Perhaps, then, "the Philistines actually were an amalgamation of several different peoples and … the Philistines descended from the Casluhites were different from those who came from Caphtor."¹¹

Pertinent to this issue may be the controversial theory of C. H. Gordon, based on his putative decipherment of Linear A as a (west) Semitic language, that Minoan civilization of the island of Crete must have had Semitic as well as Greek (Linear B) roots.¹² Though Gordon’s theory has not gained general acceptance, if it should prove true it would help to explain, for example, how Samson, an Israelite, could have communicated with Delilah, a Philistine, as both would have been of Semitic stock.¹³

What we do know is that at least by the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1200 B.C.) the Philistines were settling along the southwest coast of Canaan from somewhere south of modern Jaffa to the border of Egypt. Their five most important cities, the so-called Philistine pentapolis, were Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron (Josh. 13:3; 1 Sam. 6:17). Beyond their so-called pentapolis, the Philistines exhibited expansionist tendencies—already in the time of Samson and increasingly in the period of Samuel and the early monarchy—which brought them into direct conflict with their Israelite neighbors to the north and east.¹⁴

The more we understand of the Philistines the better we can analyze their role in the biblical accounts.

Bible Backgrounds is a series of weekly blog posts leading up to the fall 2009 release of the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament. Each post is written by John H. Walton, the general editor for the five volumes. ZIBBCOT is the product of thirty international specialists; their work and expertise will also be represented throughout this series.

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