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Updated: July 10, 2025
On the call of Ekron both princes and sovereign had hastened to its assistance, bringing with them an army consisting of chariots, horsemen, and archers, so numerous that Sennacherib calls it "a host that could not be numbered."
But Elijah by command of God had intercepted the king's messengers, and suddenly appearing before them, as was his custom, confronted them with these words: "Is there no God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub, the God of Ekron? Now, therefore, say unto the king, Thou shalt not come down from the bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die."
Three such invasions took place: those of the Phenicians, of the Philistines, and of the Hebrews the first and third being Semitic peoples, and perhaps the second also. The Philistines, settling on the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, had a Semitic religion, of which the fish-god Dagon, the Fly-Baal of Ekron, and the Ashtoreth, probably of Ascalon, are known figures.
After that, though he might explain that he never under any conditions of provocation or haste, would have said that he hated Liberalism as he did Mammon, or Belial, or Moloch; that he "chose the milder fiend of Ekron as the true exponent and patron of Liberty, the God of Flies," still the matter-of-fact Glaswegians were minded to give the scoffer a wide berth.
"One came from the old heap of Ekron yonder, and the ruins of Ramleh, and Jerusalem, and Gibeon, and Bethel; the other voice came from the flowers." "Trust the flowers." "Why, more than the ruins?" "Remember," said he. "One is God's truth; the other is man's falsehood." "But the ruins tell truth too, Mr. Dinwiddie." "What truth?
And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. 2 Kings i, 2-17.
A mile due west of it was Beshshit, while one mile to the north across more than one wadi stood El Mughar at the southern end of an irregular line of hills which separated Yebnah and Akir, which will be more readily recognised, the former as the Jamnia of the Jews and the latter as Ekron, one of the famous Philistine cities.
Despite all these drawbacks, the efforts of a few men led to the establishment in the very first year of the movement, in 1882, of the colony Rishon le-Zion, near Jaffa. Subsequently a few more colonies were founded, such as Ekron and Ghederah in Judea, Yesod Hama'alah, Rosh-Pinah, Zikhron Jacob in Galilee the last two founded by Roumanian Jews.
Yet you, whose office it is to dissuade others from these vanities, oppressed, or rather blinded by I know not what distress of mind, flee to this as to a sacred augur, and as if there were no God in Israel, that you send to inquire of the god of Ekron." H. Morley: The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, London, 1856, Vol. II, p. 138.
But Saul and the entire army of the Hebrews made a shout, and rushed upon them, and slew a great number of them, and pursued the rest to the borders of Garb, and to the gates of Ekron; so that there were slain of the Philistines thirty thousand, and twice as many wounded.
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