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Lesson 7 Video
Isaiah Part 1
Lesson 7 Video Pete De Lacy(54:08)
11/20/2008
The Word of the Holy One
Philistia, Moab, and Damascus
Philistia, Moab, and Damascus: what do they have to do with today? Aren’t those just ancient countries, names in the Bible from a long time ago? The key, though, is what is their relationship to Israel, to God’s chosen people, then and now?
Let’s turn to:
Ps 83:1-4[reads]
1 O God, do not remain quiet; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still.
2 For, behold, Thine enemies make an uproar; And those who hate Thee have exalted themselves.
3 They make shrewd plans against Thy people, And conspire together against Thy treasured ones.
4 They have said, "Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more." NASB
Does that strike you as anything modern? Are there any nations that surround Israel that want to wipe out the nation, that the name of Israel would be remembered no more? That sounds very contemporary, yet this psalm was written a couple thousand years ago. It was talking about what nations? Let’s read on:
Ps 83:5-8[reads]
5 For they have conspired together with one mind; Against Thee do they make a covenant:
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagrites;
7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assyria also has joined with them; They have become a help to the children of Lot. Selah. NASB
From your study, you know that Moab is a descendant of Lot, Moab and Ammon both being sons of Lot by Lot’s own daughters after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If you looked at the map that was in your workbook and figured out where the various countries are, you saw that Philistia was on the west of Israel and Moab was on the east of Israel. Damascus, the capital city of Aram, was to the north of Israel. We’ll continue on looking at the oracle against nations and we’ll come to Egypt, having an oracle against Egyptwho was to the south of Israel. So the nations all around the ancient nation of Israel conspired as it said in Psalm 83.
Ps 83:4
4 They have said, "Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more." NASB
They conspired to wipe them out as a nation so the name of Israel would be remembered no more. The thing for us is to not just know that truth of the ancient countries but to think about: has anything changed today? Because if we’re going to take the truths of this lesson and do anything with it today other than just have knowledge of what happened in the past, we have to ask ourselves if it’s true that there are nations surrounding Israel who have the same intent and how are they related to these Biblical nations? Well, if you look at a map today and overlay it over with the ancient maps and I believe that the map we have in our course has those little dotted lines showing you modern country names. You find that the region that was inhabited by these Philistines, over by the Mediterranean coast, the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza right on the coast, and Gath and Ekron which are a little bit inland, you will see that that area, especially Gaza, are inhabited by Palestinians. The origin of the word Palestine, that has been used for so many years, goes back to around AD 130 with the Bar Kokhba Revolt of the Jews against the Romans. Remember that the temple was destroyed in AD 70 and the Romans continued to rule in the region over the next several hundred years. There was an emperor by the name of Hadrian and after putting down that revolt around AD 130, he was so infuriated with what the Jews had done that he determined to himself to wipe out the name of the memory of the Jews.
The region up until that time had been called Judea, the Roman province of Judea. In Latin it would have been Judebea. We see the “J” but they wouldn’t have pronounced it that way. Inubea was actually the region of Edom in the south. But the greater province which would have included the Galilee, Samaria, and what we know as Judah, the southern nation of Israel, was the Roman province of Judea. After this Bar Kokhba Revolt, Hadrian said, “I’m going to destroy Jerusalem and I’m going to wipe out the name of Jerusalem and Judea.” The next province north was the province of Syria. Today we have the nation of Syria and the capital city of that Roman province was Damascus, and it’s the capital of Syria today. So what they did was we’re going to adjoin Judea to Syria andthis will be called Syria-Palestina, meaning that part of Syria where the Philistines lived. After that time people began to shorten it from Syria-Palestina to Palestine. The name of Palestine wasn’t really in use for probably several hundred yeas after that, where it was shortened to Palestine. They began to be recognized as a place much later in time. Certainly it was called Palestine much later. But the name was related to the Philistines. But not only did he rename the province Syria-Palestina, so it would no longer be called Judea, but he leveled Jerusalem and rebuilt it on the plan of a Roman city and called it Ilia Capitalina.Capitalina being the word Capital, for us. The capital of Illia, and there’s a family name connection there. But the idea was that it was no longer Jerusalem. So if you arrived at that physical geographical location in the days of Hadrian, about AD 130, you would not find either Jerusalem or Judea on the map. Just by his authority as a ruler he could say there is no Jerusalem, there is no Jewish people, there is no Judea, and barred them from the land. He said, “Get out. You can’t come in the city anymore. You have no part of the city anymore. It’s not your city and it never will be again. Go!”
I was reminded, I might have mentioned this in a previous lecture, in Schindler’s List, there’s a scene where the German commander, after he’s expelled the Jews from the ghettos, said that by this evening the Jewish presence that’s been here for 600 years will be just a rumor. The idea was to completely wipe out the memory of the Jews. Deny their very existence. The thing that a certain group of people today would still desire to have true. That there never was a Jewish temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands. There never was a Jewish worship system, they were never a part of that. It’s always belonged to Islam. Hadrian set up all the succeeding nations for the idea that we won’t call it Israel, we’ll call it Palestine; and that region was not called Israel until 1948.
In 1948, the United Nations acted to declare a homeland for the Jews. Where? in Palestine. That was where they said you could go live, in Palestine. The Jews themselves knowing the origin of the name said, “No. No. No. Our new nation will be called Israel. We are going to speak Hebrew, the language of our fathers. Our national flag will have this star on it which today is called the Star of David. We will be remembered for who we are in our land and we will no longer call it Palestine.” Because the nations desired to wipe them out as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more. But whenever the flag waves today the people have to recognize there is a nation Israel. When we think of the events of the countries around them, going all the way back in history to the modern day all that was done to Israel, we ask ourselves, what’s the right thing for God to do? What’s just? What’s fair?What’s right? Is there justice? and who metes out justice?
I thought we might just take a little walk back through history and look at these three nations: Philistia, Moab, and Damascus, and remind ourselves what their relationship has been throughout history. Of course, we can’t look at every verse throughout the Bible; we don’t have that kind of time. So let’s just take a look at Philistia first.
Amos is a contemporary prophet. I just wanted to show you something about this contemporary prophet, he was actually a little before Isaiah.
Amos 1:3[reads]
3 Thus says the LORD, "For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they threshed Gilead with implements of sharp iron. NASB
This is a literary device used in Hebrew poetry that simply means “a lot.” It’s not a specific three and then four, not for three then four, but for all transgressions. What did they do? Amos is saying: go back in time; they threshed Gilead with implements of sharp iron. Gilead is a region east of the Jordan River in modern day Jordan, where some of the Israelites lived. It does not mean they were farming. It is implying with their weapons of iron they were hurting the Jews who lived there.
Amos 1:3-8[reads]
3 Thus says the LORD, "For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they threshed Gilead with implements of sharp iron.
4 "So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael, And it will consume the citadels of Ben-hadad.
5 "I will also break the gate bar of Damascus, And cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, And him who holds the scepter, from Beth-eden; So the people of Aram will go exiled to Kir," Says the LORD.
6 Thus says the LORD, "For three transgressions of Gaza and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they deported an entire population To deliver it up to Edom.
7 "So I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza, And it will consume her citadels.
8 "I will also cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, And him who holds the scepter, from Ashkelon; I will even unleash My power upon Ekron, And the remnant of the Philistines will perish," Says the Lord GOD. NASB
Then it goes down and talks about three transgression of Gaza. Gaza was one of the five capital cities of Philistia, then it tells what it did as well. It mentions Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron, which are three of the other four cities. It talks about Tyre.
Amos 1:9
9 Thus says the LORD, "For three transgressions of Tyre and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they delivered up an entire population to Edom And did not remember the covenant of brotherhood. NASB
Tyre today, is in modern Lebanon, but in the days of the Philistines it was a Philistine city. So we have these judgments here that were a part of what is the history of the relationship. Over in chapter 2, the first verse talks about Moab.
Amos 2:1[reads]
1 Thus says the LORD, "For three transgressions of Moab and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime. NASB
Because he burned the bone of the king of Edom, and describes that, and other nations get mentioned. But other prophets have gone before Isaiah bringing the Word of God of judgment upon these nations. Isaiah is not a newcomer. Isaiah is just repeating the same judgments that are there. See, you have to remember there is a history that goes back in time. So we can go back in time, in fact, let’s go back to Genesis.I like Genesis 10 as a good origin verse for the Philistines and the generations of Shem and Ham and Japheth. These are descendants of Ham; the Philistines are descendants of Ham.
Gen 10:6[reads]
6 And the sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. NASB
Gen 10:8[reads]
8 Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. NASB
Gen 10:10-11[reads]
10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
11 From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, NASB
Gen 10:14[reads]
14 and Pathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim. NASB
If we flip forward to Joshua, chapter 13 . . . remember they took the land of Canaan under Joshua.
Josh 13:1-3[reads]
1 Now Joshua was old and advanced in years when the LORD said to him, "You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land remains to be possessed.
2 This is the land that remains: all the regions of the Philistines and all those of the Geshurites;
3 from the Shihor which is east of Egypt, even as far as the border of Ekron to the north (it is counted as Canaanite); the five lords of the Philistines: the Gazite, the Ashdodite, the Ashkelonite, the Gittite, the Ekronite; and the Avvite NASB
Gazite = Gaza
Gittite = Gath
So there are your five main Philistine cities. So it remained unpossessed. If you look at a map of the distribution of the tribes of Israel when they first settled the land, it was the tribe of Dan who was the closest to the Philistines. The tribe of Dan should have driven out the Philistines. It turns out at the end of the book, what we find out is, because they could not subdue the Philistines they moved north and ended up at the most northern most reaches of what is today Israel, and founded or changed the name of a city up there and called it Dan.
Later in the history of the Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom, when Jeroboam instituted his new worship system, with golden calves, he put one of those golden calves in Dan. So Dan should have taken the land from the Philistines but they didn’t. So the Philistines became a problem for Israel ever after that. In fact, if you go on and think about the Philistines and remember who had trouble with the Philistines? Samson!
Wasn’t it Samson who had trouble with the Philistines? Why? Because he was a Danite judge. He was from the land of Dan, which bordered the Philistine territories. The little village of Timnah. If you go there today, know what you’ll find? Field after field of grain. It looks like our American Midwest. Just grain fields.
Judg 15:4-5
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail, and put one torch in the middle between two tails.
5 When he had set fire to the torches, he released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves. NASB
You can almost imagine Samson tying together those foxes’ tails and sending them through those fields of grain and burning them up. You can see why that would work because of all the grain that they had.
What do we know about Samson? He killed a bunch of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.
Judg 15:15-16
15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it.
16 Then Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have killed a thousand men." NASB
He had great strength so he pushed aside the pillars and brought down the Philistine temple when they were worshipping. Those were the days of Samson.
Judg 16:28-30
28 Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."
29 And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left.
30 And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life. NASB
The enemy of the nation of Israel was the Philistines. You go forward in time a little bit and you come to Samuel. He was the last judge. That was the transition out of the judges to Samuel. There was an incident over in 1 Samuel 4 and we have this story of a battle between the Philistines and Israel at Ebenezer or Aphek. One side calls it Ebenezer and the other side calls it Aphek. They come up in battle array. The children of Israel were afraid of the Philistines and they go and get the ark, they say, “Ah ha! If the ark is with us, God is with us. Let’s go to battle!”
1 Sam 4:3-5:2
3 When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of the LORD, that it may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies."