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47. Message About Philistines

1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh attacked Gaza:

    2 This is what the LORD says:

   “See how the waters are rising in the north;
   they will become an overflowing torrent.
They will overflow the land and everything in it,
   the towns and those who live in them.
The people will cry out;
   all who dwell in the land will wail

3 at the sound of the hooves of galloping steeds,
   at the noise of enemy chariots
   and the rumble of their wheels.
Parents will not turn to help their children;
   their hands will hang limp.

4 For the day has come
   to destroy all the Philistines
and to remove all survivors
   who could help Tyre and Sidon.
The LORD is about to destroy the Philistines,
   the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor. That is, Crete

5 Gaza will shave her head in mourning;
   Ashkelon will be silenced.
You remnant on the plain,
   how long will you cut yourselves?

    6 “‘Alas, sword of the LORD,
   how long till you rest?
Return to your sheath;
   cease and be still.’

7 But how can it rest
   when the LORD has commanded it,
when he has ordered it
   to attack Ashkelon and the coast?”


He continues the same subject; for he says, that so grievous would be the calamity, that fathers would not have a care for their children, which is a proof of extreme sorrow; for men even in adversity do not divest themselves of their natural feelings. When a father has children, he would willingly undergo ten deaths, if necessary, in order to save their life; but when men forget that they are parents, it is a proof, as I have said, of the greatest grief, as though men, having changed their nature, were become logs of wood. But the Prophet expresses the cause, not only of sorrow, but also of anxiety; From the voice, he says, of the noise of the hoofs of his valiant ones; he does not name the horses, but פרסות, peresut, refer to horses; hoofs, he says, shall make a great noise by stamping. And then such would be the commotion by the driving of chariots, and such a tumult would the revolving wheels create, that fathers, being astonished, would not. look on their children At length, he adds, through dissolution of hands By dissolution of hands he means loss of courage or fainting. For as vigor spreads from the heart through every part of the body, so also the bands are the chief instruments of all actions. When therefore the bands are relaxed and become feeble, it follows that men become as it were inanimate. The Prophet now means that the Philistines would become like the dead, so as not to move, no, not even their fingers; and why? because they would be so terrified by the stamping of horses, by the commotion of chariots, and by the rumbling of wheels, that they would lose their senses. It follows, —


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