Who were the Philistines?

Question

Accepted Answer

The Philistines were a people of Aegean origin who settled the southern coastal plain of Canaan about 1175 BC, among the “Sea Peoples” whom Rameses III fought, and ruled five cities there, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, each under its own lord. For two centuries they were Israel's chief enemy, in the days of Samson, Samuel, Saul and David; then they lived on as small vassal kingdoms of Assyria until Nebuchadnezzar destroyed their cities about 604 BC, after which they vanish as a people. Their name survives in “Palestine”, the Greek name of the whole land. The Bible brings them from across the sea: the Lord brought up “the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir” as he brought Israel from Egypt, and Jeremiah calls them “the remnant of the country of Caphtor”, most likely Crete, about 980 km west of Gaza in a straight line; Zephaniah and Ezekiel call them Cherethites, “Cretans”. Egyptian reliefs at Medinet Habu show the Peleset among the sea-borne peoples defeated by Rameses III, and their earliest pottery is a local Mycenaean ware; ancient DNA from infants buried at Ashkelon carries a European-related strain that faded within two centuries. By the seventh century BC their kings wrote in a Canaanite dialect, as the dedication of Achish of Ekron shows. They worshipped Dagon at Ashdod and Gaza, Ashtaroth and Baal-zebub of Ekron, and were “uncircumcised”, a word Israel used of them above all its neighbours. Genesis already knows Abimelech “king of the Philistines” at Gerar in the days of Abraham and Isaac, centuries before the settlement of the Sea Peoples; most scholars take the name there as a later usage, others suppose earlier Aegean settlers. Israel's wars with them fill Judges and Samuel: “the Philistines had dominion over Israel” for forty years in Samson's time; they took the ark at Ebenezer about 1050 BC and set it before Dagon; “there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel”; Goliath came out of Gath; Saul died on Gilboa. David, once a vassal of Achish of Gath, “smote the Philistines, and subdued them”. From 734 BC the cities paid tribute to Assyria, and in 604 Nebuchadnezzar burned Ashkelon and deported its people. Herodotus in the fifth century used “Palaistine” for the land, and after the revolt of 132–135 Rome made it the name of the province.