John Gill Bible Commentary
And Eltekeh,.... Eltekeh was a city given to the Levites, Jos 21:23; and supposed by some to be the same with Eltekon in the tribe of Judah given to the Danites, Jos 15:59,
and Gibbethon was in the hands of the Philistines in the reign of Asa, Kg1 15:21; and in the same place Jerom (t) calls Gabatha a city of the strangers, or Philistines; and which lie places near Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah:
and Baalath is not the same with Baalah, Jos 15:29; but the Baalath rebuilt by Solomon, Kg1 9:18; called by Josephus (u) Baleth, and spoken of by him as near to Gazara in the land of the Philistines; of these two last cities, the Talmudists (w) say that their houses belonged to Judah, and their fields to Dan.
(t) De loc. Heb. fol. 92. C. (u) Antiqu. l. 8. c. 6. sect. 1. (w) T. Hieros. Sanhedrin, fol. 18. 3.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
19:43 About fifty years after Israel came into Canaan under Joshua, the Philistines moved into the southern coastal plain and occupied the cities of Timnah and Ekron (Judg 14:1-2; 1 Sam 5:1-10). The Philistines were among the Sea Peoples who had perhaps been driven out of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands by an invasion from the north. The Sea Peoples also invaded and destroyed the Hittite Empire to the north of Israel. (Some scholars think that Homer’s Iliad reflects this movement.)