Biblical Hebrew Forum

[ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)]

On Thu  7 Jan 99 , peter_kirk AT sil.org wrote:
> In that case, maybe (it cannot be proved, I know) the origin of the 
> name "Philistine" was in Canaan and the people living in that area in 
> the 19th century BC were called "Philistine" or something similar. 
> There is certainly no clear proof against this hypothesis, and so no 
> clear anachronism in the text of Genesis. (Could the name be from the 
> Semitic P-L-Sh "dig", perhaps because these people dug wells? - as in 
> Genesis 21 and 26, where there is perhaps irony that the "digger" 
> people in fact stopped up wells rather than dug them!)

 Peter,

 Maybe I'm just too naive, but doesn't the word P:Li$TiYM mean "immigrants"
 of any provenance?  According to Amos 9:7 HaPP:Li$TiYYiYM came from
 Caphtor, believed to be Crete. They peopled the Gaza Strip, and built
 five towns: Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath and Gaza. At the Exodus, God
 ordered Moses to respect them and their territory (Exodus 13:17). Maybe
 the word Philistines is proleptic here (like YaWaN in Zechariah 9:13?).

 One of their tribes was the Cherethites who formed a mercenary bodyguard
 for David (2 Samuel 8:18; 15:18), even though David had killed Goliath of
 Gath. After David's death they reverted to hostility, and God ended their
 rule in Ezekiel 25:15-17 and Isaiah 14:29-32.

 The modern-day Palestinians are also P:Li$TiYM. They are descendants of the
 Arabic-speaking inhabitants of "Palestine" since the Crusades. They were
 gradually dispossessed by the immigrant Jews this century after the
 Balfour Declaration, and live in refugee settlements in their own land.
 They mistook General Allenby's name to mean "Allah nabi'" - Prophet of
 Allah, so I am told. Would it be terminologically possible (though
 politically unacceptable) to call the Jewish settlers in Palestine
 P:Li$TiYM, "Immigrants"?

 WDYT?
 Ben
-- 
 Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
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