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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 25:15 - 25:17
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IV. The judgment of the Philistines (Eze_25:15-17).
Eze_25:15. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because of the doing of the Philistines in vengeance, and they have taken vengeance with disdain, with a mind to destroy (literally, with the soul, for destruction), an everlasting enmity;
Eze_25:16. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I stretch out my hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethim, (There is a paronomasia here in the original, which is preserved in the Vulgate: interficiam interfectores, I will slay the slayers—the Philistines being perhaps so designated from their warlike and cruel disposition. But Cherethim is also used as a proper name, the same probably with Cretans—the Philistines being supposed to be of Cretan extraction. (Comp. Jer_47:4; Amo_9:7; Deu_2:23; Vitringa on Isa_14:28.)) and destroy the remnant of the sea-coast.
Eze_25:17. And I will execute upon them great vengeance, with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I lay my vengeance upon them.
Little requires to be said on this part of the prediction. The Philistines were the immediate neighbours of the people of Judah, on the opposite side to that occupied by Ammon and Moab. Their hereditary enmity to the covenant-people is sufficiently known. In the later times of the Hebrew commonwealth, they appear to have been in a very reduced condition, and to be quite unable to cope with Judah even in its comparatively enfeebled state. They were discomfited by Uzziah, and had their chief towns dismantled (2Ch_26:6). They were still further humbled and subdued in the days of Hezekiah (2Ki_18:8). From that time we hear nothing more of them in the historical books of Scripture; but as they still retained their enmity to the cause and people of God, they were made the subject of severe denunciations in the prophets; not, however, without some prospects being intermingled of coming good, and even of an interest in the peculiar blessings of the covenant (comp. especially Zec_9:7). As the country lay on the direct route from Egypt to Chaldea, it suffered exceedingly in the wars that were carried on between these rival kingdoms, and was the scene of some bloody conflicts. The wandering Arabs also gradually spread themselves over the district, and produced the usual results. Even at the Christian era it no longer appears as the residence of a separate and independent people; so that the vengeance threatened might even then be said to have reached its completion. Gaza alone, from its favourable position, has been able to retain something of its ancient importance, yet merely as a place of comparative wealth and commerce, and was for centuries the seat of a Christian bishop. In every way, both in respect to the evil and the good, the word of the Lord has taken full effect; and while Israel has risen aloft by being the root out of which has come the world’s Deliverer and heaven-appointed King, the Philistines have become the heirs only of trouble and desolation, excepting in so far as they yielded themselves to the sway of the King of Zion, and partook, as spiritual Israelites, of the blessings of the kingdom.