For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted up.
Ver. 4. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Askelon, &c.] Here is dainty rhetoric in the original. This prophet was (as Quintilian saith a good orator ought to be) Vir bonus, dicendi peritus, a good man, and a master of speech. The Hebrew tongue seemeth to have been in the prime and flourish when Isaiah, Micah, and Zephaniah prophesied, like as the Latin was about Cicero's time. The Philistines are here threatened, for a terror to the impenitent Jews, who should taste of the same whip, and for the comfort of the godly, who should be hid when these their enemies should be utterly destroyed. Gaza was so forsaken, according to this prophecy, that it was therehence called Gaza, the desert; Askelon, according to its name, became ignis ignominia, the reproach of the fire that wasted it, and (as a merciless element) laid it desolate. Ashdod (called in the New Testament Azotus, Act 8:26) shall also, according to its etymology, be wasted with fire, and her inhabitants driven into a far country as captives at high noon, when the sun, in those hot climates especially, is most parching and scorching; they shall be driven out with all the disadvantage that may be.
And Ekron shall be rooted out] Ekron was the place where Beelzebub, the prince of devils had his throne. The poets put it for hell. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. Threatened it is therefore here (not without an elegance that cannot be translated) with utter extirpation. The grand devil had nested and nestled himself as near the Holy Land as might be; but he shall not long rest there, the Hebrew child (παις εβραιος) will disquiet the great Pan.