Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 9:7

"Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith Jehovah. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" — Amos 9:7 (ASV)

Are you not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel! Their boast and confidence was that they were children of the patriarch to whom God made the promises. But they, not following the faith nor doing the deeds of Israel (who was a “prince with God”) or of Abraham (the father of the faithful), had, in place of “Bene Israel” (children of Israel), become as “Bene Cushiim” (children of the Ethiopians)—descendants of Ham, furthest off from the knowledge and grace of God, the unchangeableness of whose color was an emblem of unchangeableness in evil. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil (Jeremiah 13:23).

Have I not brought up—(that is, Did I not bring up)—Israel out of the land of Egypt? Amos blends their plea and God’s answer into one. God, by bringing them up out of Egypt, pledged His truth to them to protect and preserve them. True! This was so as long as they retained God as their God and kept His laws. God chose them so that they might choose Him. By casting Him off as their Lord and God, they cast themselves off and out of God’s protection. By estranging themselves from God, they became as strangers in His sight. His act in bringing them up from Egypt had lost its meaning for them. It became no more than any other event in His Providence, by which He brought up the Philistines from Caphtor (who yet were aliens from Him) and the Syrians from Kir (who, He had foretold, should be carried back there).

This immigration of the Philistines from Caphtor must have taken place before the return of Israel from Egypt. For Moses says, The Caphtorim, who came forth from Caphtor, had at this time destroyed the Avvim who dwelt in villages as far as Gazah, and dwelt in their stead (Deuteronomy 2:23). An entire change in their affairs had also taken place in the four and a half centuries since the days of Isaac. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, Philistia was a kingdom, its capital Gerar.

Its king had a standing army, Phichol being the captain of the host (Genesis 21:22; Genesis 26:26); he also had a privy councillor, Ahuzzath (Genesis 26:26). From the time after the Exodus, Philistia had ceased to be a kingdom, and Gerar disappeared from history; the power of Philistia became concentrated in five new towns—Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, Ekron—with five heads, who consulted and acted as one (see above, the note at Amos 1:6-8).

The Caphtorim are in some sense also distinct from the old Philistines. They occupied a district not co-extensive with either the old or the new land of the Philistines. In the time of Saul, another Philistine clan is mentioned: the Cherethites. The Amalekites made a marauding inroad into the south country of the Cherethites (1 Samuel 30:14), which immediately afterward is called the land of the Philistines (1 Samuel 30:16). Probably, then, there were different immigrations of the same tribe into Palestine, just as there were different immigrations of Danes or Saxons into England, or as there have been and are from the Old World into the New—America and Australia. They were then all merged into one common name, as English, Scotch, and Irish are in the United States.

The first immigration may have been that from the Casluhim, out of whom came Philistim (Genesis 10:14); a second, from the Caphtorim, a kindred people, since they are named next to the Casluhim as descendants of Mizraim (Genesis 10:14). Yet a third was doubtless the Cherethim. But all were united under the one name of Philistines, just as Britons, Danes, Saxons, and Normans are united under the one name of English.

Of these immigrations, the one from Caphtor, even if (as seems probable) it was second in time, was the chief. This status aligns with the great accession of strength the Philistines had received by the time of the Exodus. From this situation, the Mediterranean had come to be called by their name, the sea of the Philistines (Exodus 23:31). Also, in Moses’ song of thanksgiving, the inhabitants of Philistia are named on a level with all the inhabitants of Canaan (Exodus 15:14–15). And God led His people by the way of Mount Sinai in order not to expose them at once to so powerful an enemy (Exodus 13:17).

A third immigration of Cherethim, in the latter part of the period of the Judges, would account for the sudden increase in strength which they seem then to have received. For whereas previously those whom God employed to chasten Israel for their idolatries were kings of Mesopotamia, Moab, Hazor, Midian, Amalek, and the children of the East (see Judges 3:1-10:5), and Philistia had, at the beginning of the period, lost Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron to Israel (Judges 1:18) and was repulsed by Shamgar—from that time onward, until the time of David, the Philistines became the great scourge of Israel on the west of Jordan, as Ammon was on the east.

The Jewish traditions in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and three Targums agree that Caphtor was Cappadocia. This region, because it extended to the Black Sea, might be called “I, seacoast,” which literally means “habitable land, as contrasted with the sea that washed it, whether it surrounded it or not.” The Cherethites may have come from Crete as an intermediate resting place in their migrations.