Jeremiah 47

It’s unclear when Egyptians attacked Gaza. One possibility is that it happened in 609 BC, when Pharaoh Neco traveled far north to help the Assyrians fight the Babylonians at the Battle of Carchemish near the Euphrates River. On the march north, he may have hit Gaza. But on the march home, he was angry because he had lost the battle. That was the battle in which the Babylonians finally ended the Assyrian empire by defeating their army. On Pharaoh Neco’s trip home, he was so angry that he stopped by Jerusalem and took some of the wealth of the city with him. So, he may have paid a visit to Gaza and other cities as well.

Empires attacking the region of Israel, the Philistines, and Egypt usually came from the north, along the Mediterranean coast. Empires in the east including the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians chose not to travel across the open desert, which would have been the shorter route. Instead, they followed the route that had water available to them. Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar seemed to fulfill this prophecy in about 604 BC, when he overran the coastland and took the city of Ashkelon after a siege.

Scholars say this is likely a reference to the “Sea People,” who in about the 1200s BC invaded Egypt and what is now the Palestinian region of Gaza, along with the coast of Israel. Scholars suggest that Caphtor was the ancient name for the Mediterranean island of Crete, and that the Caphtorim was the original name of the fierce fighting people who became known as the Philistines.

One way people sometimes expressed deep grief was to cut off their hair (Job 1:20).

The Hebrew word is Anakim. They were descendants of Anakim, described in the Bible as giants (Deuteronomy 2:10-11, see also Numbers 13:22). The Philistine warrior killed by young David, Goliath, may have been an Anakite. One Bible writer says he stood 6 feet 9 inches tall (2 meters, 1 Samuel 17:4). That description comes from the first Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, finished in the century before the birth of Jesus. The oldest surviving copies of this translation, known as the Septuagint, date to the AD 200-400s. But the most popular Hebrew version of the story puts Goliath at 9 feet 9 inches tall (3 meters). The oldest surviving copy of that is from about the AD 1000s. So, the Greek copy is several centuries older. Generally, scholars consider the oldest manuscripts as the most reliable.

Cutting oneself was another common way to express grief, though forbidden among Israelite ancestors of the Jewish people (Leviticus 19:28).

Ashkelon was one of five large Philistine cities along the eastern Mediterranean seacoast, along with Ashdod, Ekron, Gath (Goliath’s hometown), and Gaza.