Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shall see it, and be very sorrowful, and Ekron; for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.
6. Ashkelon ... Ekron ... Gaza ... Ashdod. Gath alone is omitted, perhaps as being somewhat inland, and so out of the route of the advancing conqueror.
Akron, for her expectation, shall be ashamed. Ekron, the farthest north of the Philistine cities, had expected Tyre would withstand Alexander, and so check his progress southward through Philistia to Egypt. This hope being confounded ("put to shame"), Ekron shall "fear."
And the king shall perish from Gaza - its government shall be overthrown. It was conformable to Persian usage (Herodotus, 3: 15) to set up petty kings in the provinces subordinate to the Persian king. In literal, fulfillment of this prophecy, after a two months' siege, Gaza was taken by Alexander, 10,000 of its inhabitants slain, and the rest sold as slaves. Betis the satrap, or petty "king," was bound to a chariot by thongs thrust through the soles of his feet, and dragged round the city.