I’ve been reading through the book of First Samuel recently, and began to wonder about the history of the arch foes of Israel at the time: the Philistines. Their origins and their disappearance from history are shrouded in mystery. Intriguingly, they also have a connection to the modern day political climate of the Middle East. Palestine means the land of the Philistines. The term refers to the geographic area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, where Israel and the West Bank/Palestine is today. It first appeared in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus around 450 BCE. He used the word “Palaistinê” to describe the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt, including the land of Israel.

There is archaeological evidence of a Philistine presence in Canaan from the time of Abraham (Genesis 21 and 26). Some have speculated this was from the trade and commercial activities of the Philistines. They would have settled along the coast of Canaan and built fortified cities to protect their trading colonies and caravan routes. When Israel left Egypt, they blocked the shortest way for the Jews to enter the Promised Land (Exodus 13:17). There is a debate over the time of the Exodus. An early date, based upon a biblical chronology dates it around 1440 BCE, 480 years before the reign of Solomon. A later date of 1270 BCE has been proposed by others, who appeal to the name of Rameses given to one of the store cities built by the Israelites (Exodus 1:11). But either way, Philistines were in Canaan before their major role in biblical history during the time of David and Saul.

There is a theory that the military power of the Philistines was partly because they had iron weapons before others in the ancient Middle East, particularly before the Jews. Richard Gabriel, in The Great Armies of Antiquity, said they were the Peleset of the Sea Peoples, who were originally from the Aegean; possibly from Cyprus or Crete. They simultaneously swept down the shores of the southeastern Mediterranean in ships, along with the overland movement of their tribes armed with iron swords. An iron sword bearing the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (1213-1203 BCE), who fought against the Sea peoples in Canaan, has been found.

During the reign of Rameses III, the Egyptians defeated an attempted invasion by the Sea People in 1190 BCE. The Harris Papyrus recorded the following account of his victory:

As for those who reached my frontier, their seed is not, their heart and their soul are finished forever and ever. As for those who came forward together on the seas, the full flame was in front of them at the Nile mouths, while a stockade of lances surrounded them on the shore, prostrated on the beach, slain, and made into heaps from head to tail.

So these Sea People turned north and settled in west Canaan, along the coast around 1200 BCE. Rameses III claimed this was his idea, but there is no clear evidence that was the case. What seems likely is that unable to prevent their gradual resettlement in Canaan, he claimed it was his idea to let them have this territory. What seems more likely is that they were simply too numerous and militarily powerful for Egypt to eject them from Canaan. Egyptian power in the region began to wane, and the Philistines were essentially unopposed in the region. Nevertheless, what is clear is that from around 1200 BCE, the Philistines were a military and cultural power in Canaan for the next 200 years.

During the time of Samson, Israel was subject to Philistine rule (Judges 15:11). But if Philistine hegemony was due to its use of iron weapons, there is not clear archeological evidence of the widespread use of iron weapons by the Philistines at that time. Yet there does appear to be an oblique reference to this with the Philistines of Saul’s time, where they controlled Jewish access to blacksmiths (1 Sam 13:19). Preventing their vassals from access to the ability to forge their own iron weapons would be a common sense way of maintaining their dominance over Israel. An iron sword could cut through a bronze (copper and tin) shield.

It was during the time of Samuel, that Israel and the Philistines began to come into greater conflict with each other. First there was the Battle of Ebenezer (1 Samuel 4:1ff), where Israel was defeated, the sons of Eli were killed, and the ark of the covenant captured by the Philistines. Later, the Israelites defeated the Philistines at the Battle of Mizpah (1 Sam 7:10). Although God had delivered them from the Philistines, the people of Israel came to Samuel saying they wanted a king, like the nations around them. The Lord granted their request, and Saul became the first king over Israel (1 Samuel 10:1).

It was under Saul and David after him that the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Philistines reached its height.  Ultimately, when David was made king he utterly defeated the Philistines (2 Sam 5:17-23) and they were never again a threat to Israel. How was it that a powerful military people like the Philistines could be neutralized so effectively by a newly formed nation like Israel?  Some individuals have speculated that in the years of his exile among the Philistines in Gath (1 Samuel 27), David learned about Philistine military tactics and strategies and then put them into practice against them in battle when he became king after Saul’s death.

But their civilization continued for a few more centuries. Three hundred years after their defeat by David around 700 BCE, the Philistines were conquered by the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians concentrated the production of olive oil at Ekron, and the Philistine city thrived under Assyrian rule. This lasted for about 100 years. Zephaniah (2:5) and Jeremiah (47) both prophesied of the destruction of the Philistines. Then around 600 BCE, the Babylonians invaded and the prophecies were fulfilled. The “uncircumcised Philistines” were no more.

After the Babylonians conquered Canaan, the Philistines were no more. No human bones were found in the debris from the Babylonian onslaught on Ekron. Scholars have speculated this was because the Philistines fled before Babylon overran Ekron. What seems more likely is that the after the destruction of Ekron by the Babylonians, many of the remaining people were relocated into other geographic areas of the empire, as the Jews were after Jerusalem fell (2 Chronicles 36:20). There may not have been any killing if the citizens of Ekron surrendered peacefully, which the Jews did not.

A YouTube video suggests that the Philistines were gradually assimilated by the surrounding cultures almost from the beginning. Professor Seymour Gitin, the Director of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research said from the time of their immigration to Canaan, they had decreasingly “less of the ethnic markers that would indicate an Aegean origin.” By the year 1000 BCE, the Philistines lost their geopolitical importance. And this is recorded in the archeological record.

Around this time Ekron was mostly destroyed, and what been a 50-acre city shrunk to about 10 acres. It remained that way for about 250 years, until the Assyrians conquered the area. They gave the Philistines some independence, making them vassal states. Ekron became the largest site center for olive oil production in the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrians, Ekron grew to 85 acres in size. It’s believed the Philistines produced around 290,000 gallons of olive oil per year for export.

Gitin and his team theorized that the Philistines survived because they were a very flexible culture. They continually incorporated something from the cultures around them; and from those that conquered them.  “Whenever a nation confronted them or conquered them, they adapted something of that culture, and they were flexible enough to survive.” By the time of the rapid growth under the Assyrians, there is not much left over culturally with an Aegean motif.

By the time of the Babylonian conquest around 597 BCE, when they were transported to the Babylonian nation to the east, they no longer had any cultural core left to maintain their identity in exile, as the Jews did. “We don’t have any evidence archaeologically, or in terms of text that is significant that would indicate they really continue. It is more or less a people who disappeared.” They became a group of people lost in the march of history.

So the modern Palestinian Arabs are not the descendants of the Philistines, but it does seem they have taken up the mantel of the Philistines by becoming the archenemy of modern day Israel.