the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Philistia
Smith's Bible Dictionary
or Philis'tia. (Hebrew, Pelesheth). (land of sojourners). The word thus translated in Psalms 60:8; Psalms 87:4; Psalms 108:9, is, in the original, identical with that elsewhere rendered Palestine, which always means land of the Philistines.
(Philistia was the plain on the southwest coast of Palestine. It was 40 miles long on the coast of the Mediterranean between Gerar and Joppa, and 10 miles wide at the northern end and 20 at the southern. - Editor).
This plain has been, in all ages, remarkable for the extreme richness of its soil. It was also adapted to the growth of military power; for while the itself permitted, the use of war-chariots, which were the chief arm of offence, the occasional elevations which rise out of it offered secure sites for towns and strongholds. It was, moreover, a commercial country: from its position, it must have been, at all times, the great thoroughfare between Phoenicia and Syria, in the north and Egypt and Arabia in the south.
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Smith, William, Dr. Entry for 'Philistia'. Smith's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/sbd/p/philistia.html. 1901.
