Who were the Philistines in the Bible?

Descendants, with the Caphtorim, of the Pathrusim, and the Casluhim, two clans descended from Ham. Gen. 10:14; Deut. 2:23; Jer. 47:4; Amos 9:7. They were found in the S.W. of Palestine when Abraham went to sojourn at Gerar, Gen. 20; and both Abraham and Isaac had certain contentions with them respecting the wells which they had digged. Gen. 21:25-34; Gen. 26:1-18. They were a warlike people, which was the reason that God did not lead the Israelites near to them when He led them out of Egypt. Ex. 13:17. It is probable that at first they were a sort of colony of Egypt. Their five cities commanded the coast road from Egypt to Syria, and there is proof that Egypt had a strong hold on Palestine before the arrival of Joshua; but it was then declining.

As they occupied a part of the promised land, the Israelites should have dispossessed them; but when Joshua was old 'all the borders of the Philistines' were still unoccupied by the Israelites. They represent the pretension and intrusion of man in the flesh into that which belongs to God. Nazariteship in Samson is God's way of deliverance, but the Nazarite utterly failed, and in the days of Eli the Israelites were conquered by them and the ark taken. When Saul was king he was in fear of them, and they were enabled to enter his dominions, and in a battle Saul and his sons lost their lives. It was by David, God's king, that the Philistines were really conquered, and under Solomon we find they were tributary.

When the kingdom of Israel was divided, the Philistines regained their independence more or less. God used them at times to punish His guilty people, and at other times gave those that served Him power over them. In the prophets destruction is pronounced upon their land and the remnant of the people. The five fortified cities of the Philistines, with their 'daughters' or dependent villages, were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. The Philistines were idolaters and worshipped Dagon, Ashtaroth and Baal-zebub. 1 Sam. 5:2; 1 Sam. 31:10; 2 Kings 1:2; Jer. 57; Ezek. 25:15-17; Amos 1:7-8; Zeph. 2:5. PHILISTIM in Gen. 10:14 is the same Hebrew word that is elsewhere translated Philistines.

The Philistines were not Canaanites, although sons of Ham. They sprang, according to Genesis 10:14, from Mizraim, to whom the land of Egypt gave its distinctive name. Yet we find them in the land of Canaan always, on the lowland of the south-west coast, with their outlook indeed toward Egypt, with which they had (as see Ex. 13:17), the freest and most unobstructed communication.

It is interesting to trace the history of the Philistines in relation to God's people Israel, and instructive to learn what God has for the saints of this day in what they represent. From Genesis 10 we see that the Philistines were of the sons of Ham (Gen. 10:6-14), and came from Caphtor (Amos 9:7), which seems to have been in or near Egypt, and they occupied the land on the sea coast, to the west of the possessions of Dan and Simeon, extending to the north of Joppa, and a little to the south of Gaza.

Who were these Philistines that held Israel in such bondage and brought them into such misery and poverty? And what do they represent? They sprang from Egypt (Gen. 10:13-14), but though they had left Egypt behind and got into the land which God had promised to His people, they had not taken His way into it; their way had been an easy and short cut by which they escaped the Red Sea and River Jordan. These things that prefigured deliverance and blessing by the death and resurrection of Christ had no place in their history. They were in the land of God's people, but they had not travelled into it by the God-ordained way (Ex. 13:17). Really they had no right in the land at all, for God had apportioned it to Israel (Deut. 32:8-9). They are figurative of what we might call secularized Christianity, religion made acceptable to unregenerate men. Ritualism and Modernism are some of the Philistines of our day, they are really pagan superstitions and philosophies that have invaded the sphere of faith and made it like a great house of mixed vessels (2 Tim. 2), and they are sorely oppressing the true Israel of God; they draw near to God with the lips, but are scornful of that heart exercise and spiritual life that have marked the revivals of former days. They have the form of godliness, but deny the power.

There remain the "Casluhim (out of whom or whence came the Philistines) and the Caphtorim." These races can hardly be doubted to have occupied the Delta before the Philistine migration to the Shephelah. Some suggest here a transposition; as Deut. 2:23, Jer. 47:4, Amos 9:7, expressly connect the Philistine immigrants with the Caphtorim. Pusey, commenting on the last of these scriptures, inclines to the conclusion, that there were different immigrations of the same tribe into Palestine (as of Danes and Saxons into England, where they all merged into one common name). The first may have been from the Casluhim; the second in time but chief in importance from the Caphtorim; and a third of Kerethim (probably from Crete) in the era of the Judges added but a little to their strength (1 Sam. 30:14-16). Of these last, Cherethites and Pelethites figure as lifeguards of King David, foreigners like the Gittites.

In Genesis 20 and 21, which we are now to consider, we are introduced to a people who, because of their fierce and unrelenting opposition to God's earthly people, figure very prominently in the after-history of the children of Israel, and who, throughout the times of Samson, Eli, Samuel and Saul, hold the chief place among the implacable enemies, whom God uses to scourge His erring people. David defeats and subjugates them, but they rise again in the times of his degenerate successors, still marked with the same relentless, ruthless and insatiable spirit of antagonism, despite the many unmistakable indications of divine intervention on behalf of His wayward and wilful people. The Philistines, for such is their name, were not Canaanites, although sons of Ham.

The Philistines were not of the nations of Canaan devoted to destruction. Away back in the book of Genesis we see both Abraham and Isaac on friendly terms with them (Gen. 20 and 26).

The Philistines did not worship the true God, they had their own gods (Judges 10:6), one of whom is named as Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. However they came to possess their lands, they knew not what it was to be delivered out of Egypt by the hand of God, to be sheltered by the blood of the lamb that was slain, to be brought across the Red Sea by divine power, to be sustained by the bread of God and refreshed by water from the flinty rock while crossing the wilderness, to pass over Jordan dry shod because of the presence of the ark of God, and to have Jehovah fight for them in dispossessing the nations of Canaan.

What marked the Philistines in the days of Abraham and Isaac was their striving to deprive God's servants of the water He had provided for them. Abraham had to reprove "Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away" (Gen. 21:25); and when Isaac dwelt in Gerar he found "all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth" (Gen. 26:15). When Isaac "digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father," the Philistines strove with him, so that he called the one Esek, which means "Quarrel," and the other Sitnah, which means "Opposition."

As to Philistines, I suppose it is from phalas to migrate. They came up from Caphtor in the direction of Egypt called Philistines because they were strangers. The Canaanites represent Satan's power over which the people of God are victorious, as God's army fighting for God - taken as enemies, treated as such - Satan simply in power. The Philistines are the thorns of Satan's power where he has not been overcome - left and not treated as an enemy. They become an abiding source of distress and perplexity, having more power than Israel, though when God interferes they may be beaten as by Samuel, or put down when Christ comes as by David. They are the allowed evil of Satan's power, not the power of Satan banished or overcome by spiritual energy.

But when we come to Judges 13 we find other enemies — not of Canaan — under whom they groaned in complete bondage for “forty years.” These people were the Philistines. This moment of their history marks the commencement of Israel’s relations with these bitterest of foes. They had settled within their borders, but were neither of the land itself within; nor were they scourges from without. This is to be noted well. The relations of Israel with these “uncircumcised” never ceased until David came: when he had taken the stronghold of Zion, the Philistines were finally subdued. Then was heard the sound of a going in the tops of the Mulberry Trees: the Lord went forth before His armies and discomfited them (2 Sam. 5). Similarly the enemy which answers to them in the midst of the Church of God, looked at responsibly on earth, will never be finally subdued until Christ — the true David comes; and then all will be complete victory.