And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.
Pathrusim - [Septuagint, Patrosoonieim.] Pathros is the Egyptian name for the south, and hence, the Thebaid (Upper Egypt) was sometimes called Nomos Phaturites. The Pathrusim, therefore, means the people whose settlement was in Upper Egypt (Isaiah 11:11; Jeremiah 44:1; Jeremiah 44:15; Ezekiel 29:14; Ezekiel 30:14).
Casluhim - [Septuagint, Chasmoonieim.] Bochart supposes the reference is to the Colchians, who, though remote, were of Egyptian origin. But Knobel takes Casluhim to denote the desert country which separated the Delta of Egypt from Palestine.
(Out of whom came Philistim), [Septuagint, Phulistieim] - i:e., emigrants (cf. Jeremiah 47:4; Amos 9:7); originally a Casluhian colony: they were reinforced by intermixture with a Caphtorite tribe. Caphtorim, [Septuagint, Gaphthorieim] - probably the Copts, a people who occupied Lower Egypt (Daniel 2:23; Jeremiah 47:4; Amos 9:7), called also Cherethites (1 Samuel 30:14; Ezekiel 25:16; Zephaniah 2:5); hence, some consider Caphtorim-Cretans from Crete, since Caphtor is thought to signify that island (Jeremiah 47:4). But here it must be confined to Egypt, and refers to the eastern part of the Delta-namely, the land of Goshen. The Philistines were Egyptian exiles, who, when expelled by Amosis, sought refuge in Palestine among their clansmen settled in the southern parts of that country. These were probably the names of the primitive homes or districts of Egypt, which, as Josephus informs us, were obliterated in the Ethiopian war ('Antiquities,' 1:6).
The historian having described Babel-the extreme eastern, and Egypt, or Ethiopia-the extreme western settlement of the Hamites, proceeds to fill up his ethnographical map by the enumeration of the Canaanite tribes who populated the intermediate regions.