Following the Sea People’s unsuccessful land and sea battles against Rameses III (r.c.1184-c.1153 BC) in his eighth year, the Philistines settled on the coast of southern Canaan. The first wave of settlement was in five cities known as the Pentapolis: three on or near the coast – Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod; and two, Gath and Ekron, in the Shephelah to the east.
While the Philistines were settling in the southern coastal plain, three other peoples were settling east of the Jordan: the Edomites in the south, the Moabites east of the Jordan, and the Ammonites at the edge of the Syrian desert.
After the death of Rameses III, Egyptian power began to weaken and the Philistines pushed into surrounding areas. Sites to the north in the region of Yarmuk included Aphek, Tel Gerisa and Tell Qasile. The Philistines’ expansion brought them into conflict with the Israelites.
Joshua tells us that the Yarkon River was the boundary between the tribe of Dan and the Philistines. One of the Danite leaders (judges) was Samson, a charismatic hero about whom many stories are told in the Book of Judges. He managed to hold the Philistines at bay for twenty years but when he died his tribe fled to the north, to the sources of the Jordan River. There they captured the Canaanite town of Laish and settled it under their tribal name of Dan.
At the frontier fortress Aphek a Philistines army confronted Israelite tribes at nearby Ebenezer (c.1050 BC). The Israelites put their trust in a regular pitched battle and suffered total defeat. The Bible records that after this disaster the elders sent for the Ark of the Covenant (which housed the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets) to raise the spirits of the shattered troops. In the second phase of the battle, the Ark itself was captured by the enemy and taken to Ashdod, and a Philistine fortress was constructed at Gibeah (=Tell el-Ful), a key point of the tribal land of Benjamin.
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