Baldness is come upon Gaza,.... The Targum is,"vengeance is come to the inhabitants of Gaza.''It is become like a man whose hair is fallen from his head, or is clean shaved off; its houses were demolished; its inhabitants slain, and their wealth plundered; a pillaged and depopulated place.
Some understand this of shaving or tearing off the hair for grief, and mourning because of their calamities; which agrees with the latter clause of the verse:Ashkelon is cut off [with] the remnant of their valley; this was one of the live cities of the Philistines; it lay north of Gaza.
Herodotus calls Ashkelon a city of Syria, in which was the temple of Urania Venus, destroyed by the Scythians; said to be built by Lydus Ascalus, and called so after his name . Of this city was Herod the king, and therefore called an Ashkelonite; it was now destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, but afterwards rebuilt and inhabited; and with it were destroyed the remainder of the cities, towns, and villages, in the valley, adjoining to that and Gaza; or Ashkelon and Gaza, now destroyed, were all that remained of the cities of the valley, and shared the same fate with them.
The Targum is,"the remnant of their strength;''so Kimchi, who interprets it of the multitude of their wealth and power;how long wilt thou cut thyself? their faces, arms, and other parts of their body, mourning and lamenting their sad condition; the words of the prophet signifying hereby the dreadfulness of it, and its long continuance.
Clio, sive l. 1. c. 105. Vid. Bochart. Phaleg l. 2. c. 12. p.