Albert Barnes Commentary Zephaniah 2

Having set forth the terrors of the Judgment Day, the prophet adds an earnest call to repentance. He then declares how judgments, forerunners of that Day, will fall, one by one, on those nations around who do not know God, and will rest upon Nineveh, the great, beautiful, ancient city of the world.

Jerome comments: "See the mercy of God. It would have been enough to have set before the wise the vehemence of the coming evil. But because He wills not to punish, but to alarm only, He Himself calls to repentance, that He may not do what He threatened."

Cyril states: "Having set forth clearly the savagery of the war and the greatness of the suffering to come, he suitably turns his discourse to the duty of calling to repentance, when it was easy to persuade them, being terrified. For sometimes when the mind has been numbed, and exceedingly bent to evil, we do not readily admit even the will to repent, but fear often drives us to it, even against our will."

He calls us then to friendship with Himself. For as they revolted, became aliens, serving idols and giving up their minds to their passions, so they would, as it were, retrace their steps and lay hold of the friendship of God, choosing to serve Him, indeed, Him Alone, and obey His commandments.

Therefore, while we have time, while the Lord, in His forbearance as God, gives way, let us enact repentance, supplicate, say weeping, remember not the sins and offences of my youth (Psalms 25:7); let us unite ourselves with Him by sanctification and sobriety.

So we will be sheltered in the day of wrath and wash away the stain of our falls, before the Day of the Lord comes upon us. For the Judge will come; He will come from heaven at the due season and will reward each according to his work."

Regarding the exhortation, Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, it is perhaps better rendered as, "Sift yourselves, yes, sift." The exact image is from gathering stubble or dry sticks, which are picked up one by one, with search and care.

So one must deal with the dry and withered leaves of a past evil life. The English rendering, however, comes to the same meaning. We use "collect oneself" for bringing oneself, all one’s thoughts, together, and so, having full possession of oneself. Or "gathering ourselves" might stand in contrast with being "abroad," as it were, out of ourselves amid the manifoldness of things seen.

Jerome says: "You who, taken up with the business of the world, hurry to and fro amid various things, return to the Church of the saints, and join yourself to their life and assembly, whom you see to please God, and bring together the dislocated members of your soul, which now are not knit together, into one frame of wisdom, and cleave to its embrace."

"Gather yourselves" into one, where you have been scattered: to the One God, from whom they had wandered, seeking pleasure from His many creatures; to His one fold and Church, from which they had severed themselves outwardly by joining the worship of Baal, inwardly, by serving him and his abominable rites; joining and joined to the assembly of the faithful, by oneness of faith and life.

In order to repent, one must know oneself thoroughly. This can only be done by taking act by act, word by word, thought by thought, as far as one can—not as they lie in a confused heap or mass in anyone's conscience, but one by one, each picked up apart, examined, and added to the sere, unfruitful heap. One must, as it were, pluck them and gather them out of oneself, so that they may, by the Spirit of burning—the fire of God’s Spirit kindling repentance—be burned up, and not the sinner oneself be fuel for fire with them. The word is also intensive: "Gather together all which is in you, thoroughly, piece by piece" (for the sinner’s whole self becomes chaff, dry and empty).

To use another image: "Sift yourselves thoroughly, so that nothing escapes, as far as your diligence can reach." And then, "And gather on," that is, "glean on." This means to examine yourselves "not lightly and after the manner of dissemblers before God," but repeatedly, gleaning again and again, to see if by any means anything has escaped, continuing on the search and not ceasing.

The first earnest search into the soul must be the beginning, not the end. Our search must be continued until there is no more to be discovered—that is, when sin is no more, and we see ourselves in the full light of the presence of our Judge.

For a first search, however diligent, never thoroughly reaches the whole deep disease of the whole person; the most grievous sins hide other grievous sins, though lighter. Some sins flash on the conscience at one time, some at another, so that few, even upon a diligent search, come at once to the knowledge of all their heaviest sins. When the mist is less thick, we see more clearly what was before one dark, dull mass of imperfection and misery.

As one has said: "Spiritual sins are also with difficulty sifted (as they are) by one who is carnal.

Thus it happens that things in themselves heavier such a person perceives less or very little, and conscience is not grieved so much by the memory of pride or envy, as of impurities and crimes."

So having said, "Sift yourselves through and through," he says, "sift on." A diligent sifting and search into oneself must be the beginning of all true repentance and pardon.

As one writer exhorts: "What remains, but that we give ourselves wholly to this work, so holy, and needful? Let us search and try our ways and our doings, and let each think that he has made progress, not if he does not find what to blame, but if he blames what he finds.

You have not sifted yourself in vain if you have discovered that you need a fresh sitting; and so often has your search not failed you, as you judge that it must be renewed. But if you ever do this when there is need, you do it always.

But always remember that you need help from above and the mercy of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is over all, God blessed forever."

The whole course of self-examination then lies in two words of divine Scripture. Moreover, he warns them, instead of gathering together riches which "will not be able to deliver them in the day of trouble," to gather themselves into themselves, and so judge themselves thoroughly, that they be not judged of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:31–32).

The phrase O nation not desired means a nation having nothing in itself to be desired or loved but rather, for its sin, hateful to God. God yearns with pity and compassion over His creatures; He hath a desire to the work of His Hands. Here Israel is spoken of as what he had made himself—hateful to God by his sins—although still an object of His tender care, in what yet remained to him of nature or grace which was from Himself.

Before the decree bring forth - God’s word is full (as it were) of the event which it foretells; it contains its own fulfillment in itself, and travails until it comes to pass, giving signs of its coming, yet delaying until the full time. Time is said to bring forth what is accomplished in it. You know not what a day shall bring forth.

Before the day pass as the chaff - Or, parenthetically, “like chaff the day passes by.” God’s counsels lie wrapped up, as it were, in the womb of time, in which He hides them, until the moment which He has appointed, and they break forth suddenly to those who do not look for them. The meantime is given for repentance, that is, the day of grace, the span of repentance still allowed, which is continually whirling more swiftly by; and woe, if it is fruitless as chaff!

Those who do not profit by it shall also be as chaff, carried away pitilessly by the whirlwind to destruction. Time, on which eternity hangs, is a slight, uncertain thing, as little to be counted upon as the light dry particles which are the sport of the wind, driven uncertainly here and there.

But when it is passed, then comes, not to them, but upon them, from heaven, overwhelming them, abiding upon them (John 3:36), not to pass away, the heat of the anger of Almighty God. This warning he twice repeats, to impress the certainty and speed of its coming (Genesis 41:32). It is the warning of our Lord, Take heed, lest that day come upon you unawares (Luke 21:34).

Seek ye the Lord - He had exhorted sinners to penitence; he now calls the righteous to persevere and increase more and more. He bids them “seek diligently,” and that with a threefold call, to seek Him from whom they received daily the threefold blessing (Numbers 6:23–26), Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as he had just before threatened God’s impending judgment with the same use of the mysterious number, three. They, whom he calls, were already, by the grace of God, meek, and had wrought His judgment. Rup.: “Submitting themselves to the word of God, they had done and were doing the judgment of God, judging themselves that they be not judged; the beginning of which judgment is, as sinners and guilty of death, to give themselves to the Cross of the Lord, that is, to be baptized in His Death and be buried with Him by Baptism into death; but the perfection of that judgment or righteousness is, to walk in newness of life, as He rose from the dead through the glory of the Father (Romans 6:3–4).”

Dionysius: “Since the meek already have God through grace as the Possessor and Dweller in their heart, how shall they seek Him but that they may have Him more fully and more perfectly, knowing Him more clearly, loving Him more ardently, cleaving to Him more inseparably, that so they may be heard by Him, not for themselves only, but for others?” It is then the same Voice as at the close of the Revelation, the righteous, let him be still more righteous; the holy, let him be still more holy (Revelation 22:11). They are the meek, who are exhorted “diligently” to seek meekness, and they who had wrought His judgment, who are “diligently” to seek Righteousness. And since our Lord says, Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart (Matthew 11:29), He bids (Jerome) “those who imitated His meekness and did His judgment, to seek the Lord in their meekness.” Meekness and Righteousness may be His Attributes, Who is All-gentleness and All-Righteousness, the Fountain of all, wherever it is, in gentleness receiving penitents, and, as the Righteous Judge, giving the crown of righteousness to those who “love Him and keep His commandments,” indeed He joins righteousness with meekness, since without His mercy no man living could be justified in His Sight.

Cyril: “God is sought by us, when, of our choice, laying aside all listlessness, we thirst after doing what pleases Him; and we shall do judgment too, when we fulfill His divine law, working out what is good unshrinkingly; and we shall gain the prize of righteousness, when crowned with glory for well-doing and running the well-reported and blameless way of true piety to God and of love to the brethren, for love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10).”

It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger - Rup.: “Shall these too then scarcely be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger? Does not the Apostle Peter say the very same? If it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:17–18). So then, although any be meek, although he have wrought the judgment of the Lord, let him ever suspect himself, nor think that he has already attained, since neither can any righteous be saved, if he be judged without mercy.”

Dionysius: “He says, if may be; not that there is any doubt that the meek and they who perseveringly seek God, shall then be saved, but, to convey how difficult it is to be saved, and how fearful and rigorous is the judgment of God.”

To be hid is to be sheltered from wrath under the protection of God; as David says, In the time of trouble He shall hide me (Psalms 27:5); and, Thou shalt hide them (that trust in Thee) in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man; Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues (Psalms 31:20). And in Isaiah, A Man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest (Isaiah 32:2); and, There shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain (Isaiah 5:6).

For - As a reason for repentance and perseverance, he discusses pagan nations upon whom God’s wrath was to come.

Jerome notes: “As Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, after visions concerning Judah, turn to other nations all around and, according to the character of each, announce what will happen to them, and dwell at length upon it, so does this prophet, though more briefly.”

And so, by considering five nations located to the west, east, south, and north, he includes all humankind on every side. He further categorizes them according to their respective characters toward Israel, as they are either alien to or hostile to the Church:

• The Philistines (Zephaniah 2:4–7), as a near, malicious, and troublesome enemy;
• Moab and Ammon (Isaiah 2:8–10), peoples related to Israel (as heretics are to the Church), yet always rejoicing in her troubles and sufferings;
• The Ethiopians (Isaiah 5:12), distant nations at peace with her, who are, for the most part, spoken of as to be brought to her;
• And Assyria (Isaiah 13-15), as the great oppressive power of the world, upon which the full desolation therefore rests.

In the first fulfillment, because Moab and Ammon, by aiding Nebuchadnezzar (and all of them, in various ways, wronging God’s people: Isaiah 16:4; Amos 1:13–15; Amos 2:1–3; Jeremiah 48:27–30, 48:42; Jeremiah 49:1; Ezekiel 20:3, 20:6, 20:8), trampled on His sanctuary, overthrew His temple, and blasphemed the Lord, the prophecy was turned against them.

So then, before the captivity came, while Josiah was still king, and Jerusalem and the temple were not yet overthrown, the prophecy was directed against those who mocked them.

Gaza shall be forsaken. Out of the five cities of the Philistines, the prophet pronounces woe upon the same four as Amos (Amos 1:6–8) did before him, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:20) soon after, and Zechariah (Zechariah 9:5–6) later.

Gath, then, the fifth city, had probably remained with Judah since the time of Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26:6) and Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:8). In the sentencing of the rest, attention was paid (as is so frequent in the Old Testament) to the names of the places themselves, so that, from then on, the name of the place might suggest the doom pronounced upon it.

The names expressed boastfulness and so, in the divine judgment, carried their own sentence with them; this sentence was pronounced by a slight change in the word. Thus ‘Azzah’ (Gaza), ‘strong,’ was to become ‘Azoobah,’ ‘desolated’; “Ekron, deep-rooting,” was to “Teaker, be uprooted”; the “Cherethites” (cutters off) were to become (Cheroth) “diggings”; “Chebel, the band” of the sea coast, was in another sense to be “Chebel,” an “inheritance” (Zephaniah 2:5, 2:7), divided by line to the remnant of Judah; and “Ashdod” (the waster) was to be taken in its might—not by craft, nor in the way of robbers, but “driven forth” violently and openly in the “noon-day.”

For Gaza shall be forsaken - Some changes in fortune for these towns have been noted already. The fulfillment of the prophecy is not restricted to a specific time; the one marked contrast is that the old pagan enemies of Judah would be destroyed, while the house of Judah would be restored and would re-enter the possession of the land promised to them long ago.

The Philistine towns, it seems, had nothing to fear from Babylon or Persia, to whom they remained faithful subjects. The Ashdodites (who, probably as the most important, represent the whole group) combined with Sanballat, the Ammonites and the Arabians (Nehemiah 4:7), to obstruct the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. An army was even gathered, headed by Samaria (Nehemiah 2).

They portrayed themselves as loyal, and Jerusalem as rebellious (Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 6:6). With the old sin remaining, Zechariah renewed Zephaniah’s sentence against the four cities (Zechariah 9)—a prophecy that even an unbeliever has recognized as picturing the march of Alexander.

Indeed: “All the other cities of Palestine having submitted,” Gaza alone resisted the conqueror for two (or five) months. It had come into the hands of the Persians during Cambyses’ expedition against Egypt. After all the men of Gaza perished fighting at their posts, Alexander sold the women and children and repopulated the city with people from the surrounding area. Palestine lay between the two rival successors of Alexander—the Ptolemies and Seleucids—and suffered from their wars.

Gaza fell by misfortune into the hands of Ptolemy, 11 years after the death of Alexander. Soon after, it was destroyed by Antiochus (198 B.C.), “preserving its faith to Ptolemy” as it had previously to the Persians, in a way admired by a pagan historian.

In the Maccabean wars, Judas Maccabaeus primarily destroyed the idols of Ashdod but also “spoiled their cities” . Jonathan set Ashdod on fire, along with its temple of idols, which served as a kind of citadel for it . Ascalon submitted to him ; Ekron with its borders was given to him by Alexander Balas ; and he burned the suburbs of Gaza .

Simon took Gaza, expelled its inhabitants, filled it with believing Jews, and fortified it more strongly than before . However, after a year’s siege, it was betrayed to Alexander Jannaeus, who killed its senate of 500 and razed the city to the ground.

Gabinius restored Gaza and Ashdod. After Herod’s death, Ashdod was given to Salome; Gaza, being a Greek city, was detached from the realm of Archelaus and annexed to Syria. It was destroyed by the Jews in their revolt when Florus was “procurator” (55 A.D.).

Ascalon and Gaza must still have been strong and likely had a distinct population in the early times of Antipater, Herod’s father. This was when Alexander and Alexandra set him over all Idumaea, since “he is said” at that time “to have made friendship with the Arabs, Gazites and Ascalonites, likeminded with himself, and to have attached them by many and large presents.”

Yet, although the inhabitants were changed, the hereditary hatred remained. Philo, in his Embassy to Caius (40 A.D.), used the strong words: “The Ascalonites have an implacable and irreconcilable enmity to the Jews, their neighbors, who inhabit the holy land.” This hatred continued toward Christians.

Some horrible atrocities, of almost inconceivable savagery, committed by those of Gaza and Ascalon (361 A.D.), are related by Theodoret and Sozomen. Gregory of Nazianzus, speaking of the times of Julian, asks: “Who is ignorant of the madness of the Gazaeans?” This was before the conversion of the great temple of Marna in Gaza into a Christian Church by Eudoxia.

On the occasion of Constantine’s exemption of Maiumas Gazae from their control, it is alleged that they were “extreme heathen.” In the time of the Crusades, the Ascalonites are described by Christians as their “most savage enemies.”

It may be that a likeness of sin brought with it a likeness of punishment. But the primary prediction was against the people, not against the walls. The sentence, Gaza shall be forsaken, would have been fulfilled by the removal or captivity of its inhabitants, even if they had not been replaced by others. A prediction against any ancient British town would have been fulfilled if the Britons in it had been replaced or exterminated by Danes, these by Saxons, and these in turn subdued by the Normans, even if those who displaced them became wealthy and powerful in their stead.

Even on the same site, it would not be the same Gaza when the Philistine Gaza became Edomite, the Edomite Greek, and the Greek Arabian. Ashdod (as well as Gaza) is spoken of as a city of the Greeks. New Gaza is described as a mixture of Turks, Arabians, Fellahin, and Bedouins from Egypt, Syria, and Petraea.

Felix Faber says, “there is a wonderful com-mixture of divers nations in it, Ethiopians, Arabs, Egyptians, Syrians, Indians and eastern Christians; no Latins.” Its Jewish inhabitants fled from it in the time of Napoleon; now, with few exceptions, it is inhabited by Arabs.

But these—Ghuzzeh, Eskalon, Akir, Sedud—are, at most, successors to the Philistine cities, of which no trace remains above the surface of the earth. It is common to speak of “remnants of antiquity” as being found or not found in any of them; but this means that where these exist, they are remains of a Greek or Roman city, not of a Philistine one.

Of the four cities, “Akkaron” (Ekron), meaning “the firm-rooting,” has not left a vestige. After biblical times, it is mentioned by name only by some who passed by it. There was “a large village of Jews” so-called in the time of Eusebius and Jerome, “between Azotus and Jamnia.”

Now a village of “about 50 mud houses without a single remnant of antiquity except 2 large finely built wells” bears the name of Akir. Jerome adds, “Some think that Accaron is the tower of Strato, afterward called Caesarea.” This idea was perhaps derived from a misunderstanding of his Jewish instructor, but it shows how completely all knowledge of Ekron was then lost.

Ashdod - Or Azotus, which, at the time Zephaniah prophesied, held out against a twenty-nine-year siege by Psammetichus, is now replaced by “a moderate sized village of mud houses, situated on the eastern slope of a little flattish hill,” and is “entirely modern, not containing a vestige of antiquity.” “A beautiful sculptured sarcophagus with some fragments of small marble shafts,” found “near the Khan on the southwest,” of course, belong to later times.

“The whole south side of the hill also appears as if it had once been covered with buildings, the stones of which are now thrown together in the rude fences.” Its bishops are mentioned from the Council of Nicaea to 536 A.D., and so probably continued until the Muslim devastation. It is not mentioned in the Talmud. Benjamin of Tudela calls it Palmis and says, “it is desolate, and there are no Jews in it.” Furthermore, “Neither Ibn Haukal (Yacut), Edrisi, Abulfeda, nor William of Tyre mention it.”

Ascalon and Gaza each had a port, Maiuma Gazae and Maiuma Ascalon, literally meaning “a place on the sea” (an Egyptian name), belonging to Ascalon or Gaza. The name implies that Ascalon and Gaza themselves, the old Philistine towns, were not on the sea.

They were, like Athens, built inland, perhaps (as has been conjectured) from fear of pirate raids or incursions from those who (like the Philistines themselves probably, or some tribe of them) might come from the sea. The port for both was probably built much later; the Egyptian name implies that they were built by Egyptians, after the time when its kings Neco and Apries (Pharaoh-Necho and Pharaoh-Hophra, who took Gaza –Jeremiah 47:1) made Egypt a naval power. This inland location with a separate port became a characteristic of these Philistine cities.

They themselves lay more or less inland and had a city connected with them of the same name on the shore. Thus there was an “Azotus by the sea” and an “Azotus Ispinus.” There were “two Iamniae, one inland.” But Ashdod lay further from the sea than Gaza; Jamnia (the Yabneel of Joshua 15:11; in Uzziah’s time, Yabneh, 2 Chronicles 26:6) was further from the sea than Ashdod. The port of Jamnia was burned by Judas .

The name “Maiumas” does not appear until Christian times, though “the port of Gaza” is mentioned by Strabo. Alexander brought the siege engines with which he took Gaza itself to this port from Tyre. That port, then, must have been at some distance from Gaza.

Each port became a town large enough to have its own bishop in Christian times. The Epistle of John of Jerusalem, inserted in the Acts of the Council of Constantinople (536 A.D.), written in the name of Palestine I, II, and III, is signed by a Bishop of Maiumen of Ascalon as well as by a Bishop of Ascalon, and by a Bishop of Maiumas of Gaza as well as by a Bishop of Gaza. Yabne, or Jamnia, was on a small eminence, a 6 to 12 hour journey from the sea.

Maiumas Gazae became better known. Because it was Christian, Constantine gave it the right of citizenship, named it Constantia after his son, and made it a city independent of Gaza. Julian the Apostate restored to Gaza (which, despite having bishops and martyrs, still had a pagan temple at the beginning of the 5th century) its former jurisdiction over Maiumas. Though about 20 furlongs away, Maiumas was called “the maritime portion of Gaza.”

From then on, it had the same municipal officers. However, Sozomen adds, “as regards the Church alone, they still appear to be two cities; each has its own Bishop and clergy, and festivals and martyrs, and commemorations of those who had been their Bishops, and ‘boundaries of the fields around,’ by which the altars that belong to each Episcopate are separated.”

In Sozomen’s time, the provincial Synod decided against the wishes of a Bishop of Gaza who wanted to bring the clergy of the Maiumites under his own authority, ruling that “although deprived of their civil privileges by a pagan king, they should not be deprived of those of the Church.”

In 400 A.D., then, the two cities were distinct, not joined nor merging into one another.

Jerome mentions it as “Maiumas, the emporium of Gaza, 7 miles from the desert on the way to Egypt by the sea.” Sozomen speaks of “Gaza by the sea, which they also call Maiumas.” Evagrius describes it as “that which they also call Maiumas, which is opposite the city Gaza,” and “a little city.”

Mark the Deacon (421 A.D.) says, “We sailed to the maritime portion of Gaza, which they call Maiumas.” Antoninus Martyr, around the close of the 6th century, wrote, “we came from Ascalon to Mazomates, and came from there, after a mile, to Gaza - that magnificent and lovely city.”

This perhaps explains how an anonymous Geographer, listing the places from Egypt to Tyre, says so distinctly, “after Rinocorura lies the new Gaza, being itself also a city; then the desert Gaza” (writing, we must suppose, after some of Gaza’s destructions). Jerome could also say with equal certainty: “The site of the ancient city scarcely yields the traces of foundations; but the city now seen was built in another place in place of that which fell.”

Keith, who explored the spot in 1844, found widespread traces of an extinct city. He reported:

“At seven furlongs from the sea, the numerous but minute remains of an ancient city are yet in many places to be found. Innumerable fragments of broken pottery, pieces of glass (some beautifully stained), and of polished marble, lie thickly spread in every level and hollow, at a considerable elevation and various distances, on a space of several square miles. In fifty different places they profusely lie, in a level space far firmer than the surrounding sands, from small patches to more open spaces of twelve or twenty thousand square yards.”

“The oblong sand-hill, greatly varied in its elevation and of an undulating surface, throughout which they recur, extends to the west and west-southwest from the sea nearly to the surroundings of modern Gaza. In attempts to cultivate the sand (in 1832) hewn stones were found near the old port. Remains of an old wall reached to the sea. Ten large fragments of wall were embedded in the sand.”

“About 2 miles off are fragments of another wall. Four intermediate fountains still exist, nearly entire, in a line along the coast, doubtless belonging to the ancient port of Gaza. For a short distance inland, the debris is less frequent, as if marking the space between it and the ancient city, but it again becomes plentiful in every hollow. About half a mile from the sea we saw three pedestals of beautiful marble. Holes are still to be seen from which hewn stones had been taken.”

On the other hand, since the old Ashkelon—like Gaza, Jamnia, and Ashdod—had a seaport town that belonged to it but was distinct from it (the city itself lying distinct and inland), and since there is no space for two distinct towns within the circuit of the Ashkelon of the Crusades (which is limited by the nature of the ground), it seems there is no choice but that the city of the Crusades, and the present ruins, must have been Maiumas Ascalon, the seaport.

The change could have occurred more readily because the title “port” was often omitted.

The new town obliterated the memory of the old, as Neapolis (Naples), on the shore, has taken the place of the inland city (whatever its name was). Similarly, Utrecht, it is said, has displaced the old Roman town, the remains of which are three miles off at Vechten; or Sichem is called Neapolis (Nablus), which yet was 3 miles off (Jerome).

Erriha is probably at least the second representative of the ancient Jericho; the Jericho of the New Testament, built by Herod, not being the Jericho of the prophets. The Corcyra of Greek history gave its name to the island; it is replaced by a Corfu in a different but near locality, which equally gives its name to the island now. The name of Venetia migrated with the inhabitants of the province, who fled from Attila, some 23 miles, to a few of the islands on the coast, to become again the name of a great republic.

In our own country, “Old Windsor” is said to have been the residence of the Saxon monarchs; the present Windsor was originally “New Windsor.” Old Sarum was the Cathedral city until the reign of Henry III. But, as the old towns decayed, the new towns came to be called Windsor or Sarum, though not the towns which first had the name. What is now called Shoreham, not many years ago, was called “New Shoreham,” in distinction from the neighboring village.

William of Tyre describes Ashkelon as “situated on the sea-shore, in the form of a semi-circle, whose chord or diameter lies on the sea-shore; but its circumference or arc on the land, looking east. The whole city lies as in a trench, all declining toward the sea, surrounded on all sides by raised mounds, on which are walls with numerous towers of solid masonry, the cement being harder than the stone, with walls of due thickness and of height proportionate; it is surmounted also with outer walls of the same solidity.” He then describes its four gates: east, north, and south toward Jerusalem, Gaza, and Joppa, respectively; and the west, called the sea-gate, because “by it the inhabitants have an egress to the sea.”

A modern traveler, whose description of the ruins exactly agrees with this, says, “the walls are built on a ridge of rocks that winds round the town in a semicircular direction and terminates at each end in the sea; the ground falls within the walls in the same manner that it does without, so that no part of it could be seen from the outside of the walls.”

“There is no bay nor shelter for shipping, but a small harbor advancing a little way into the town toward its eastern extremity seems to have been formed for the accommodation of such small craft as were used in the better days of the city.” The harbor, moreover, was larger during the Crusades and enabled Ascalon to receive supplies of corn from Egypt, thereby prolonging its siege. Sultan Bibars filled up the port and cast stones into the sea (1270 A.D.) and destroyed the remains of the fortifications, for fear that the Franks, after their treaty with the king of Tunis, should bring back their forces against Islamism and establish themselves there. Yet Abulfeda, who wrote a few years later, calls it “one of the Syrian ports of Islam.”

This city, so placed on the sea, and into which the sea also enters, cannot be the Ashkelon that had a port which was a town distinct from it. The Ascalon of the Philistines, which existed down into Christian times, must have been inland.

Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century, who had been on the spot and is an accurate eyewitness, says, “From Ashdod are two parasangs to Ashkelonah; this is new Ashkelon which Ezra the priest built on the sea-shore, and they at first called it Benibra.” Jerome mentions another Benamerium, north of Zoar, now N’mairah (see Tristram, Land of Moab, p. 57).

A well in Ascalon is mentioned by Eusebius: “There are many wells (named) in Scripture and are yet shown in the country of Gerar, and at Ascalon” (see under φρέαρ (phrear)). William of Tyre says: “It has no fountains, either within the compass of the walls, or near it; but it abounds in wells, both within and without, which supply palatable water, fit for drinking.”

“For greater caution the inhabitants had built some cisterns within, to receive rain-water.” Benjamin of Tudela also says, “There in the midst of the city is a well which they call Beer Ibrahim-al-khalil (the well of Abraham the friend (of God)) which he dug in the days of the Philistines.” Keith mentions “20 fountains of excellent water opened up anew by Ibrahim Pasha” (p. 274), and it is distant from the old Ashkelon, which is desolate, four parasangs. When the old Ashkelon perished is unknown. If, as seems probable from some of the antiquities dug up, the Ashkelon at which Herod was born and which he beautified was the seaport town, commerce probably attracted to it gradually the inhabitants of the neighboring town of Ascalon, just as the population of Piraeus now exceeds that of Athens.

The present Ashkelon is a ghastly skeleton: all the framework of a city, but no one there. “The soil is good,” but the “peasants who cultivate it” prefer living outside in a small village of mud-huts, exposed to winds and sand-storms, because they think that God has abandoned it and that evil spirits (the Jinn and the Ghoul) dwell there.

Even the remains of antiquity, where they exist, belong to later times. A hundred men excavated in Ashkelon for 14 days in hopes of finding treasure there. They dug 18 feet below the surface and found marble shafts, a Corinthian capital, a colossal statue with a Medusa’s head on its chest, a marble pavement, and a white-marble pedestal. The excavation reached no Philistine Ashkelon.

“Broken pottery,” “pieces of glass,” “fragments of polished marble,” “of ancient columns, cornices etc.” were the relics of a Greek Gaza.

Though it is then a superfluity of fulfillment, and what can be found belongs to a later city, still what can be seen has an impressive correspondence with the words: Gaza is “forsaken”; for there are miles of fragments of some city connected with Gaza. The present Gaza occupies the southern half of a hill built with stone for the Moslem conquerors of Palestine. “Even the traces of its former existence, its vestiges of antiquity, are very rare; occasional columns of marble or gray granite, scattered in the streets and gardens, or used as thresholds at the gates and doors of houses, or laid upon the front of watering-troughs. One fine Corinthian capital of white marble lies inverted in the middle of the street.” These, then, belong to times later than Alexander, since whose days the very site of Gaza must have changed its aspect.

Ashkelon shall be a desolation - The site of the port of Ascalon was well chosen: strong, overhanging the sea, fenced from the land, stretching forth its arms toward the Mediterranean as if to receive in its bosom the wealth of the sea, yet shunned by the poor farmworkers around it. It lies in such a living death that it is “one of the most mournful scenes of utter desolation” which a traveler, “even in this land of ruins ever beheld.” But this too cannot be the Philistine city. The sands which are pressing hard upon the solid walls of the city, held back by them for the time, yet threatening to overwhelm “the spouse of Syria,” and which accumulated in the plain below, must have buried the old Ashkelon, since in this land, where old names so cling to the spot, there is no trace of it.

Ekron shall be uprooted - And at Akir and Esdud, “celebrated at present for its scorpions,” the few stones which remain, even of a later town, are but as gravestones to mark the burial place of departed greatness.

Jerome comments: “In like manner, all who glory in bodily strength and worldly power and say, ‘By the strength of my hand I have done it,’ shall be left desolate and brought to nothing in the day of the Lord’s anger.” And “the waster”—they who by evil words and deeds injure or destroy others and are an offense to them—these shall be cast out shamefully into outer darkness. Rupertus adds: “when the saints shall receive the fullest brightness” in the ‘mid-day’ of the Sun of Righteousness.

The judgment shall not be in darkness, except to them, but in mid-day, so that the justice of God shall be clearly seen, and darkness itself shall be turned into light, as was said to David, “You did this thing secretly, but I will do it before all Israel and before the sun” (2 Samuel 12:12). And our Lord said, “Whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Luke 12:3). And Paul writes, “the Lord shall come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart” (1 Corinthians 4:5). And “they who by seducing words in life or in doctrine uprooted others, shall be themselves rooted up” (Matthew 15:13).

The “woe,” having been pronounced on the five cities apart, now falls upon the whole nation of the Cherethites or Philistines. The Cherethites are only named as equivalent to the Philistines, probably because they were originally a distinct immigration of the same people. The name is used by the Egyptian slave of the Amalekite (1 Samuel 30:14) for those whom the author of the first book of Samuel calls Philistines (1 Samuel 30:16). Ezekiel uses the name parallel with that of “Philistines,” with reference to the destruction that God would bring upon them.

The word of the Lord—does not come to them, but “upon” them, overwhelming them. To them He does not speak in good, but in evil; not in grace, but in anger; not in mercy, but in vengeance.

Philistia was the first enemy of the Church. It showed its enmity to Abraham and Isaac and wished that they should not sojourn among them (Genesis 21:34; Genesis 26:14–15; Genesis 26:28). They were the hindrance that prevented Israel from going straight to the promised land (Exodus 13:17). When Israel passed the Red Sea, “sorrow” took hold of them (Exodus 15:14). They were close to salvation in body, but far in mind. They are called “Canaan,” as they were a chief nation of it (Genesis 15:21), and in that name lay the original source of their destruction.

They inherited the sins of Canaan and with them his curse, preferring the restless beating of the barren, bitter sea on which they lived, “the waves of this troublesome world,” to being a part of the true Canaan. They would absorb the Church into the world, and master it, subduing it to the pagan Canaan, not subdue themselves to it, and become part of the heavenly Canaan.