The rule of Othniel could not have lasted long. If he belonged to the generation which had witnessed the Exodus out of Egypt, he would have been already an old man at the time of the war with Chushan-rishathaim. Hardly was he dead before Israel was again under the yoke of an oppressor. Moab had recovered from its reverses at the hands of the Amorites and Israelites, the Reubenites had degenerated into mere Bedâwin squatters in the wadis of the Arnon,[[297]] and Eglon, the Moabite king, now prepared to possess himself of southern Canaan. Jericho was seized, or rather ‘the city of palm-trees’ which had succeeded to the Canaanitish Jericho, and the ford over the Jordan was therefore secure. Eglon was followed by bands of Amalekite Bedâwin, eager for spoil, like the Sutê who in the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence were hired by the rival princes of Canaan in their quarrels with one another. He was also allied with the Ammonites, from which we may infer that the Israelites north of the Arnon, between Moab and Ammon, had been either expelled or brought into subjection.
The capture of Jericho opened the road to Mount Ephraim to Eglon as it had done a few years previously to Joshua. But the Israelites were treated more mercifully than Joshua had treated the Canaanites. Perhaps they lived in unwalled villages rather than in fortified towns, and their culture was not high enough to tempt an enemy with the prospect of a rich booty. At all events we hear of no massacres or burnt cities; the Israelites are laid under tribute, that is all.
For eighteen years they served Eglon. Then Ehud, the Benjamite, who like so many of his tribe was left-handed,[[298]] was chosen to carry the yearly tribute to the conqueror. Eglon was encamped at Gilgal, in the very spot where the Israelitish camp had so long stood, and received the envoys in the upper story of his house, immediately under the roof. When the tribute-bearers had been dismissed, Ehud, who had gone as far as the sacred ‘circle’ of hallowed stones,[[299]] turned back with the excuse that he had a secret message for the king, which demanded the utmost privacy. Taking advantage of his solitude, Ehud seized his sword with his left hand and plunged it into the body of Eglon, then, locking the door of the room behind him, he escaped through the columned verandah. Before the murder was discovered he had made his way to Seirath, and gathered around him the Israelites of Mount Ephraim. The fords across the Jordan were occupied, and the flying Moabites slain at them to a man.
It would seem that the Moabite ‘oppression’ did not extend beyond Mount Ephraim. Ephraim and Benjamin were the tribes who had suffered from it, and it was over them accordingly that Ehud was judge. His authority does not appear to have been recognised further to the north or to the south.
In the south, indeed, there were other enemies to be contended against, and there was another hero who had risen up against them. The Edomite and Jewish settlers found themselves confronted by those formidable sea-robbers who had once dared the whole power of Egypt, and were now established on the southern coast of Palestine. The Philistines, called Pulista by the Egyptians, Palastâ and Pilistâ by the Assyrians, were new-comers like the Israelites. They had come from Caphtor, which modern research tends to identify with the island of Krete, and, along with their kinsfolk the Zakkal, had taken part in the invasion of Egypt by the barbarians of the north at the beginning of the reign of Ramses III.[[300]] It is the first time that their name is mentioned in the Egyptian annals. But the Zakkal, who afterwards settled on the Canaanitish coast to the north of them, and whom they resembled in dress and features, are mentioned among the invaders against whom Meneptah II. had to contend, and it is therefore possible that the Philistines also were included in the host whose assault upon Egypt seems to have been connected with the Hebrew Exodus. At any rate, at the very moment when the Israelites were making ready to enter Canaan, the Philistines had already possessed themselves of the five cities which guarded its southern frontier. The date of the conquest can be fixed within a few years. Ramses III. tells us that the barbarians had swept through Syria, where they had established their camp in the ‘land of the Amorites’ northward of Canaan. Then they fell upon Egypt partly by land, partly by sea. This may be the time when the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath were captured by the Philistines; if so, Gaza must have again become Egyptian after the overthrow of the invading hordes, since Ramses III. includes it among the conquests of his campaign in southern Palestine. But it could not have remained long in his hands. The key of Syria, the frontier town which had so long been garrisoned by Egyptian troops, at last ceased to be Egyptian, and became Philistine. Henceforth Egypt was cut off from Asia; ‘the way of the Philistines’ was guarded by the Philistines themselves.[[301]]
The actual occupation of ‘Philistia’ was doubtless preceded by piratical descents upon the coast. This, in fact, seems to be indicated by the statement in the book of Exodus that the Israelitish fugitives were not led by ‘the way of the Philistines’ lest they should ‘see war.’ From the time when the northern barbarians first attacked Egypt in the reign of Meneptah II. down to the final settlement of the Philistines on the Syrian coast after the Asiatic campaign of Ramses III., the conquest of the Canaanitish coast was slowly going on. All the while that the Israelites were in the desert, the Philistines of Caphtor were creating their new kingdom for themselves. They were one of the ‘hornets’ which Yahveh had sent before Israel into the Promised Land. When Judah and Simeon eventually took possession of southern Canaan, they found the Philistines too firmly established to be dislodged.[[302]]
It was not only from their walled cities in Palestine that the Philistines derived their strength. They were within easy reach of their kinsmen in Krete, and fresh supplies of emigrants were doubtless brought to them from time to time in Kretan ships. Greek tradition knew of a time when Minôs, the Kretan king, held command of the sea, and it is said that the sea between Gaza and Egypt was called ‘the Ionian.’[[303]] In the reign of Hezekiah we learn from the Assyrian king Sargon that when the people of Ashdod deposed their prince the usurper whom they placed on the throne was still a ‘Greek’ (Yavani).
The features of the Philistine are known to us from the Egyptian sculptures. They offer a marked contrast to those of his Semitic neighbours. They are, in fact, the features of the typical Greek, with straight nose, high forehead, and thin lips. Like the Zakkal he wears on his head a curious sort of pleated cap, which is fastened round the chin by a strap. Besides the cap, and sometimes a cuirass of leather, his dress consisted of a kilt, or perhaps a pair of drawers, similar to those depicted on objects of the ‘Mykenæan’ period, and he was armed with a small round shield with two handles, a spear, and a short but broad sword of bronze. The kilt and arms were the same as those of the Shardana or Sardinians.[[304]]
The Philistines were thus aliens on the soil of Canaan. Their Hebrew neighbours stigmatised them as the ‘uncircumcised,’ and in the Septuagint they are called the Allophyli or ‘Foreigners.’ But they mixed in time with the Avim whom they had displaced.[[305]] The Amoritish Anakim survived at Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (Josh. xi. 22), and Goliath of Gath was reputed one of their descendants. The Philistines borrowed, moreover, numerous words from the Semitic vocabulary, if indeed they did not adopt ‘the language of Canaan’ altogether. Their five ‘lords’ took the Semitic title of seren, and the supreme god of Gaza was called by the Semitic name of Marna or ‘Lord.’ Dagon, whose temple stood at Gaza, was a Babylonian god whose name and worship had been brought to the West in early days.[[306]]
The Israelites soon found that the Philistines were dangerous neighbours. From their five strongholds in the south they issued forth to plunder and destroy. Judah and Simeon were the first to suffer, while such parts of the heritage assigned to Dan as had not been annexed to Ephraim or Benjamin passed into Philistine hands.[[307]] But the central and northern tribes did not escape. We learn from an unpublished Egyptian papyrus in the possession of M. Golénischeff that Dor, a little to the south of Mount Carmel, had been occupied by the Zakkal, the kinsmen of the Philistines, so that the whole coast from Gaza to Carmel may be said to have become Philistine. From hence their raiding parties penetrated into the interior, and depopulated the villages of Ephraim and Manasseh, of Zebulon and of Naphtali.