Gaza

Gaza sits on the southwestern edge of the land of promise, the last named point as the Canaanite frontier runs down toward Egypt and the first named point when the Avvim, the Anakim, the Caphtorim, the Philistines, and finally Solomon's empire each stake a claim. Its name marks the seam between Israel and the sea-peoples for nearly the whole span of the Hebrew Bible, and the prophets return to it again and again as a city under sentence. The Samson cycle pulls a single life into the same seam: Samson goes down to Gaza, is brought back to Gaza, and dies in a Gaza temple. Gaza is, throughout, a frontier word.

On the border of the Canaanite

Gaza first appears as a southern stake in the description of Canaan's reach. "And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon, as you go toward Gerar, to Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, to Lasha" (Ge 10:19). Gaza marks the seaward terminus of that line — the point past which one is no longer in Canaan but in the country of the cities of the plain.

That seam is also held by an earlier population. Deuteronomy preserves a notice that the Avvim once kept that coastline: "and the Avvim, who dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead" (De 2:23). Gaza is presented as the eastern reach of Avvim settlement, and the Caphtorim — the people from whom the Philistines come — are remembered as having displaced them.

A remnant of the Anakim

A second population sits over Gaza in the conquest record: the Anakim, the great-statured pre-Israelite peoples of the southern hill-country and the coast. Joshua's southern sweep cuts them off in the highlands — "And Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill-country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill-country of Judah, and from all the hill-country of Israel: Joshua completely destroyed them with their cities" (Jos 11:21) — but the coast keeps a remnant: "There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some remain" (Jos 11:22).

Deuteronomy frames the Anakim as the standard of giant: "(The Emim dwelt in it previously, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim" (De 2:10); "these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim" (De 2:11). The fear they inspired is the spies' fear and Israel's recurring nightmare: "a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?" (De 9:2). Gaza is one of the three coastal cities where that nightmare was not finally cleared.

One of the five Philistine cities

When the geography of Israel's western neighbor is laid down, Gaza appears at the head of the pentapolis. "From the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even to the border of Ekron northward, [which] is reckoned to the Canaanites; the five lords of the Philistines; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avvim" (Jos 13:3). The five cities are five lordships, and Gaza's people are named first.

Gaza is allotted to Judah in the tribal partition: "Ashdod, its towns and its villages; Gaza, its towns and its villages; to the brook of Egypt, and the great sea, and the border [of it]" (Jos 15:47). Judges records the tribe taking it: "Also Judah took Gaza with its border, and Ashkelon with its border, and Ekron with its border" (Jud 1:18). The hold does not last; for most of the period of the judges Gaza is in Philistine hands, and the city's reappearance in narrative is almost always as a Philistine stronghold.

The pentapolis turns up again in the ark narrative. The five-city tally for the trespass-offering names them together: "And these are the golden tumors which the Philistines returned for a trespass-offering to Yahweh: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one" (1Sa 6:17). Gaza is one fifth of a unit.

The southern reach of the Midianite raid

In the Gideon prologue, the southward extent of the Midianite raid is measured by Gaza: "and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey" (Jud 6:4). The raiders strip the land "until you come to Gaza" — Gaza marks the endpoint of the devastation.

Samson at Gaza

The Samson cycle reaches its center at Gaza, and Gaza is named at three turning-points in his life.

He is born to deliver Israel from Philistine hands. The angel tells his mother: "for, look, you will become pregnant, and give birth to a son; and no razor will come upon his head; for the lad will be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he will begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines" (Jud 13:5). "And the woman bore a son, and named him Samson: and the lad grew, and Yahweh blessed him" (Jud 13:24). His own provocations against the Philistines, the narrator notes, run on a hidden track: "But his father and his mother didn't know that it was of Yahweh; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines had rule over Israel" (Jud 14:4).

The first Gaza scene is a brothel and a city gate. "And Samson went to Gaza, and there saw a whore, and entered her" (Jud 16:1). Word travels: "The Gazites [were told], saying, Samson has come here. And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, [Wait] until morning light, then we will kill him" (Jud 16:2). His response is the famous gate-uprooting: "And Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron" (Jud 16:3). The city's defense — its gate — is carried bodily out of the city.

He then loves a woman in Sorek — "And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah" (Jud 16:4) — and the Delilah cycle plays out. He breaks new cords like burned flax: "Now she had ambushers waiting in the inner chamber. And she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And he broke the cords, as a string of flax is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength wasn't known" (Jud 16:9). He finally tells her his secret: "And he told her all his heart, and said to her, A razor has not come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb: if I were shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like one of man" (Jud 16:17). When the Philistines come the next time, the strength is gone: "And she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free. But he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him" (Jud 16:20).

The second Gaza scene is the prison-house. "And the Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground in the prison-house" (Jud 16:21). The man who once carried Gaza's gate to the top of a mountain is now grinding in Gaza behind the gate.

The third Gaza scene is the temple of Dagon. "And the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand" (Jud 16:23). The death is the collapse of the temple-house on its lords: "And Samson said, Let my soul die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were in it. So the dead that he slew at his death were more than those who he slew in his life" (Jud 16:30). Gaza's temple is the deliverer's grave and the lords' grave together.

The southwestern boundary under Solomon

A single peace-time verse reaches the city again. Solomon's dominion is described as running from the Euphrates crossing to the Philistine coast: "For he had dominion over all [the region] on this side the River, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings on this side the River: and he had peace on all sides round about him" (1Ki 4:24). Gaza names the empire's southwest corner — the same border-marker that Genesis used for Canaan, now used for the kingdom of Israel.

Gaza under Pharaoh's hand

Centuries later, Gaza is on the receiving end of Egyptian power. Jeremiah opens his Philistine oracle with the historical note: "The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza" (Jer 47:1). The prophecy's setting is a strike on Gaza by an Egyptian king; the city stands as the pretext and the date-stamp for the oracle that follows.

The cup for the Philistine cities

Gaza appears in Jeremiah's "cup of wrath" tally as one of the named coastal cities: "and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod" (Jer 25:20). Of the five-city pentapolis, four are named here — Gath alone is missing — and Gaza is one of them.

Prophetic oracles against Gaza

Three prophets isolate Gaza by name in oracles of judgment.

Amos opens his oracle on Gaza with the four-fold formula: "Thus says Yahweh: For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they carried away captive the whole people, to deliver them up to Edom" (Am 1:6). The charge is slave-trade: a Gazan handing-over of "the whole people" to Edom. The sentence is fire on the wall: "but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces" (Am 1:7). Amos's wider sweep then takes the rest of the pentapolis with it: "And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish, says the Sovereign Yahweh" (Am 1:8).

Zephaniah names Gaza first in a four-city sentence: "For Gaza will be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation; they will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron will be rooted up" (Zep 2:4). The pattern is the same coastal four — Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron — pronounced as forsaken, desolated, driven out, uprooted.

Zechariah's oracle returns to the same four and works Gaza through fear, pain, and depopulation: "Ashkelon will see it, and fear; Gaza also, and will be very pained; and Ekron, for her expectation will be put to shame; and the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited" (Zec 9:5). Gaza in Zechariah is doubly named — Gaza will be in pain, and "the king will perish from Gaza."

Gaza in the Maccabean campaigns

The city reappears in the campaigns of Jonathan: "And he went from there to Gaza: and those who were in Gaza shut him out: and he besieged it, and burned all the suburbs round about, and took the spoils" (1Ma 11:61). Gaza shutting its gates against an Israelite commander, a siege, the burning of the suburbs, the taking of spoils — the city is still functioning as the same kind of frontier stronghold the prophets had named, now opposite a Hasmonean army instead of an Assyrian or Egyptian one.

The shape of the witness

Across these passages, the Gaza of the UPDV witness is consistently a border-city: the southern terminus of Canaan, the foothold of an Anakim remnant, one of the five Philistine lordships, the southwest corner of Solomon's reach, the target of Egyptian arms, and the named subject of three coastal-pentapolis oracles. Samson's life is plotted along the same edge — a Gaza gate, a Gaza prison, a Gaza temple — and Jonathan's campaign closes the canon's Gaza references with another siege at the same wall.