Now that more than one hundred olive oil presses have been excavated at Tel Miqne-Ekron and others at Tel Batash-Timnah, biblical scholars have used the finds to reexamine biblical texts. One such scholar is Philip King, who has reexamined the Book of Amos in the light of this new data. Since our focus here is on the Philistines, I will present a synopsis of Dr. King's study only as it relates to Philistia.

Amos of Judah prophesied to Israel during its heyday under King Jeroboam II in the mid-eighth century B.C. Through its production of olive oil, Ekron was soon to become prosperous and a good source of revenue for its Assyrian overlords. (Neither Egypt nor Assyria cultivated olives.) Dr. King uses findings from the Ekron excavations in his study of Amos and the marzeah ritual of Amos 6:1-7, specifically verse 6. This ritual was a pagan one known in the Near East already in the fourteenth century B.C. It served both a religious and a social function, and it could commemorate either joyful or sorrowful occasions, but, in both cases, excessive eating and drinking were involved. The ritual required wealth, and Amos castigated complacent affluence in his prophecy (chap. 6). Israel and Judah (6:1) were prosperous -- for the rich.

Sometimes the marzeah was used as part of a funerary cult (as in Jer. 16:5, 7-8), where a feast was held for the departed loved ones. King is not sure if this is the way the marzeah was used in Amos 6:4-6, but any reading of the text indicates that overindulgence by the rich and famous was predicated. Amos attacked the complacency of both Israel and Judah in verses 1-6, as well as their mistaken notion that because they were God's people, nothing would happen to them.

The marzeah ritual is broken down into five components, and it is the fifth one, "and anoint themselves with the finest oils," that involves the olive presses of Tel Miqne-Ekron, Timnah, and, no doubt, other sites where these oil presses have been recovered. The initial phase of crushing the olives is what produces the finest oils, or virgin oil as it is presently marketed in our stores. During the eighth-seventh centuries B.C., the olives for oil were placed in a shallow stone basin and then crushed with a stone roller. Once they were of a paste-like consistency, the mess was washed with water. After the material in the basin was stirred, the oil would float to the top. The oil that was skimmed off at this stage was the virgin oil, or as the New Revised Standard Version calls it, the "finest oil," with which people anointed themselves.

Here then we have used the material culture found at Philistine sites to better understand a facet of the economic life of the people mentioned in Amos 6. The Lord warns his people here that economics is related to their religious life, and unless they act with justice, as a holy people, they will go the way of "Gath of the Philistines" (v. 2).