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But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven.
After the decisive victory of the 9th January, Rafa had been formed into an advanced base for the next attack on the Turks, who had retreated some twenty miles to immensely strong positions, of which Gaza formed the right and Beersheba the left flank, with Sheria in the centre. During the whole of February, troops of all arms had been steadily marching eastwards across the desert.
Thus we get, firstly, the capture of Beersheba; secondly, the attack on the Gaza coastal defences; and, thirdly, the main attack delivered against Sheria. "This plan of operations was chosen for the following reasons. The enemy's works in the Hareira-Sheria sector were less formidable than elsewhere, and they were easier of approach than other parts of the enemy's defences.
The analogy between the meetings exhibited in this parable and the meeting of Philip with the Ethiopian (Acts viii.) is interesting and instructive. In both cases the place is a desert, in both a man in great need and a man who has the means of supplying that need meet each other there. Here the want and its supply are material and temporal, there they are moral and spiritual. The man who fell among thieves on the way to Jericho suffered from bodily wounds, and the Samaritan who came to his relief appropriately applied material remedies: the Ethiopian treasurer, in that way towards Gaza which is desert, suffered in his soul, and the name of Christ was the ointment which Philip the evangelist poured into his wound. These two cases are indeed diverse, but as we learn from the Scriptures throughout, they proceed, both as to disease and cure, upon analogous principles, so that the knowledge of the one throws light upon the meaning of the other. The meeting in the desert near Gaza did not happen by chance, it was a tryst duly made and exactly kept, for "the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south," &c. (Acts viii.
The Turkish army at this time, as we have seen, held a strong position from the sea at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba road to Beersheba. His force was on a wide front, the distance from Gaza to Beersheba being about 30 miles. Gaza itself had been made into a strong modern fortress, heavily entrenched and wired, offering every facility for protracted defence.
So great a step in advance needed clear command from God to impel to it and to justify it. I. We have, then, first, the new commission. Philip might well wonder why he should be taken away from successful work in a populous city, and despatched to the lonely road to Gaza. But he obeyed at once. He knew not for what he was sent there, but that ignorance did not trouble or retard him.
He saw the horrors of war; he was there, the son of the Kings of France, when the army of the republic conquered the cities El Arish and Gaza; he took part by the side of Kleber in the storming of Jaffa. He was there when the captured Jaffa had to open its gates to the victors.
He sent his mother first to Gaza, where she was received with the greatest friendliness by the sultan, and sent back laden with costly presents; on her return to Kerak, corrupted by the hospitality and generosity of the sultan, she persuaded her son to wait on him, as did also his ambassador Alamjad with equal zeal.
If, during the summer months, we had been stealthily and laboriously preparing for the assault the Turks had been no less active in strengthening their defences. Gaza itself was almost impregnable; and from the sea to Beersheba they had constructed a series of enormously strong works, of which those at Atawina Ridge and between Sheria and Hereira were the chief.
There were also certain of the cities which paid tribute to Archelaus: Strato's Tower and Sebaste, with Joppa and Jerusalem; for as to Gaza, and Gadara, and Hippos, they were Grecian cities, which Caesar separated from his government, and added them to the province of Syria. Now the tribute-money that came to Archelaus every year from his own dominions amounted to six hundred talents.
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