Simon the Maccabee, Ethnarch, and High Priest, 142-135 b.c., laid siege to the fortress of Gaza, and expelled the heathen inhabitants. Shortly afterwards he appointed his third son, John Hyrcanus I, as commander-in-chief of all his forces.
1. Acts viii. 26.—And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
There is only one New Testament reference to Gaza, and it has given rise to much controversy.
The pronoun αὕτη may either relate to ὁδὸν (way) or to Gaza. If the former, then it is the way which is desert; if the latter, it is the city. If we apply it to the city it is difficult to reconcile the statement with the facts of history; unless we regard the phrase "which is desert" as a parenthetic explanation of St. Luke's written soon after the destruction of Gaza by the Jews in a.d. 66.
Some refer ἔρημος to the ancient city destroyed by Alexander, and affirm that the new city occupied a different site.
The words αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος, however, were probably intended to describe the Roman highway on which St. Philip the Evangelist should find the Eunuch. There were then, as now, several roads leading from Jerusalem to Gaza. Two traversed the rich plain of Philistia; but one ran to Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrîn), and thence direct through an uninhabited waste to Gaza.
See Alford's Greek Testament on Acts viii. 26, and Wordsworth's Greek Testament on the same passage, which he thus explains: "Go by the road which leads to Gaza—which is desert; Almighty God has something for thee to do there. He can enable thee to do the work of an Evangelist, not only in the city of Samaria, but in the wilderness of Philistia."
Note on Acts viii. 38.—Deacons in the early Church, notwithstanding the precedent of St. Philip, were not usually allowed to baptise alone. Wordsworth's The Ministry of Grace, p. 161.