CAPHTOR (Ii5ph'tOr), (Hcb. kaf-tore', Dent. ii:23; Jer. xlvii:4; Amos ix:7), was the real and proper country of the Philistines.
There has been a great diversity of opinion with regard to the exact situation of that country. The general opinion that Caphtor was Cappa docia is, upon the whole, founded more on the ancient versions of the Bible, such as the Sep tuagint and the Targums, than on any sound argument. Against this opinion have been urged (1) The authority of Josephus, who seems to seek Caphtor somewhere between Egypt and Ethi opia ; (2) that the Caphtorim came originally from Egypt, from which Cappadocia is so far removed, that it seems highly improbable that an Egyptian colony could first have emigrated thither, and then again removed to Palestine, still more remote; (3) that Caphtor and Cappadocia are very dissimilar names, even in sound; (4) that Caphtor is (Jer. xlvii :4) designated as an island ('14, aia), though `t: sometimes also signi fies a coast.
Others, again, such as Calmet, and still more J. G. Lackemacher (Obser. Phil. p. 2, II sq.). have tried to prove that the Philistines derived their origin from the island of Crete, because (1) Caphtor is, with Jeremiah. an island. and (2) the proper name of the Philistines is "Chere thites," Kerethim (Ezek. xxv :16; Zeph. :5).
Calmet's earlier opinion (found in the first edi tion of his Comment on Genesis, but which he afterwards recalled, is that Caphtor is the island of Cyprus.
Forster (Episi. ad Michael, p. 17, sq.) thinks that the Caphtorim had lived on the Egyptian coast kas 'I< in Jer. xlvii:4 is also used of sea coasts), somewhere about Damietta. From hence, he supposes a colony of that people, and their brethren and easterly neighbors, the Cosine/1On, had gone forth, in the period between the first wars of the world (described in Gen. xiv), and the birth of Isaac, and settled on the southern coast of Palestine, under the name of the Phil istines, after having expelled the Avim, who lived about Gaza (see Avis!). Only in subse quent times, Forster thinks, these new Philistines had again sent a colony, who conquered the province of Lapethus, in the island of Cyprus. This colony he identifies with the Ethiopians, who lived, according to Herodotus (vii :88), upon that island. There is much solid ground in favor of this opinion.
Schaff thinks it is more probably identical with Cophtur, and the northern delta of Egypt.