The
Philistines (
Hebrew ??????,
plishtim) (see "other uses" below) were a
people who inhabited the southern coast of
Canaan, their territory being named
Philistia in later contexts. Their origin has been debated among scholars, but modern
archaeology has suggested early cultural links with the
Mycenean world in mainland
Greece. Though the Philistines adopted local
Canaanite culture and language before leaving any written texts, an
Indo-European origin has been suggested for a handful of known Philistine words (See
Philistine language).
The etymology of the word into English is from Old French Philistin, from Late Latin Philistinus, from Late Greek Philistinoi, from Hebrew P'lishtim, (See, e.g., 1 Samuel 1726, 1736; 2 Samuel 120; Judges 143), "people of P'lesheth" ("Philistia"); cf. Akkadian Palastu, Egyptian Palusata; the word probably is the people's name for itself.[1]
Biblical scholars often trace the word to the semitic root p-l-sh (Hebrew ????) which means to divide, go through, to roll in, cover or invade,[2] with a possible sense in this name as "migrant" or "invader"[3]
Jones suggests that the name Philistine is a corruption of the Greek "phyle histia" ("tribe of the hearth", with the Ionic spelling of "hestia").[4] He goes on to suggests that they were responsible for introducing the fixed hearth to the Levant. Very interestingly, this suggestion was raised before the archaeological evidence for the use of the hearths was documented at Philistine sites.
