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God Vs Philistia

by Lance Ponder⁽⁸⁴⁾
http://fkiprofessor.xanga.com

For Gaza shall be deserted, and Ashkelon shall become a desolation; Ashdod's people shall be driven out at noon, and Ekron shall be uprooted. Woe to you inhabitants of the seacoast, you nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; and I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left. And you, O seacoast, shall be pastures, with meadows for shepherds and folds for flocks. The seacoast shall become the possession of the remnant of the house of Judah, on which they shall graze, and in the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening. For the Lord their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes. - Zeph 2:4-7, ESV

The cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Ashodod were all in what was then Philistine territories west of Jerusalem on or near the Mediterranean Sea. English translations fail to capture the intended puns conveyed by the original Hebrew. There’s a sort of poetic word play applied to the woes of each of the four cities in 2:4. Even though the prophetic words take the form of a taunt, they are no less applicable. The Cherethites were people from Crete, a group associated with the Philistines of the coastal areas of southern Canaan.

The great woe to all these places would be their destruction until none remain in their lands. At first one might think these areas were to be destroyed by the Babylonians along with Judea. It is true that Babylonian armies overran the entire region. There are several other similar prophecies against the Philistines (Is 14:29-31, Jer 47, Joel 3:4-6, Amos 1:6-8, and Zech 9:5-7). Joel’s prophecy in particular has a strong association with end times. Perhaps more interesting, though, is that Zechariah’s prophecy was given after the Babylonian exile. The ultimate destruction of these places doesn’t seem to take place until after this time. Except for Ekron, these cities are all on modern maps. Perhaps, then, the ultimate end of the pagan abominations in these places is still yet to come.

There is also the matter of the “remnant” to discern. Even though a remnant did return to Jerusalem and did reclaim Judea as its homeland under Persian rule, Judah never was truly autonomous for any length of time during the second temple period. It never was able to claim the Gaza region as its own. In modern times, since the reestablishment of modern Israel, we have seen fighting over the region of Gaza. Israeli settlements there have been forced out. Perhaps the clearest vision of what it would look like after God’s wrath against the Philistines appears in the latter chapters of Ezekiel (ref. Eze 47:20).

Article submitted Wednesday, July 27, 2011 & read 130 times.

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