Chapter Forty-Seven

1–7. Prophecy against the Philistines.

Jer 47:1-7 The Philistines are seized by such terror at news of the enemy coming to their land from the north that fathers pay no heed even to the pleas of their own children. With the fall of the Philistine strongholds, the Phoenicians, the Philistines’ allies, lose their last hope; their cities of Tyre and Sidon must also suffer the horrors of siege. The proud Philistines will implore in vain for mercy: God’s sword will not stop until God’s judgment upon the Philistines is fully executed.

Jeremiah 47:1. The word of the Lord that came to the prophet Jeremiah concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza. The time of pronouncing the prophecy is determined by the words: before Pharaoh struck Gaza. This was soon after the battle at Megiddo (608 BCE), when Pharaoh Necho, coming from the harbor of Acco and thus from the north into Philistine territory, destroyed Gaza, because Gaza was like a key to Egypt. If his campaign against Mesopotamia, which he was then undertaking, had ended in failure, he could still, in that case, return unhindered along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt.

Jeremiah 47:2. Thus says the Lord: behold, waters are rising from the north and will become an overflowing torrent, and will inundate the land and all that fills it, the city and those living in it; then the people will cry out, and all the inhabitants of the country will wail. Here, as in verse 3, the invasion of the Babylonians is depicted (compare Jer 1:15).

Jeremiah 47:4. from that day, which will come to destroy all the Philistines, to take away from Tyre and Sidon all their remaining helpers, because the Lord will destroy the Philistines, the remnant of the island of Caphtor. “Remnant of the island of Caphtor.” The Philistines are so called because a significant portion of the population of the Philistine land consisted of settlers from the island of Caphtor or Crete (see Amos 9:7). According to other interpretations, Caphtor was a name for a part of the Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian Delta (compare Jer 25:22).

Jeremiah 47:5. Gaza is shaved bare, Ashkelon is lost, the remnant of their valley. Baldness — compare Jer 2:16 and Jer 16:6. — “Remnant of their valley.” Here is meant the low-lying, less protected part of Philistine territory — namely, the western part.