Raphia
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(3 Macc. 1:1)—a city on the Mediterranean road from Egypt to Coele-Syria, between Rhinocolura and Gaza. There Ptolemy IV Philopator won a celebrated victory over Antiochus the Great, king of Syria (3 Macc. 1:2–4). In the source’s day the site was an uninhabited waste with an ancient deep well and several granite columns. The land of the Philistines extended northward from Raphia along the Mediterranean coast.