The collapse of Bronze Age Mediterranean trade was a long-term process that took place through the 12th and 11th centuries BCE. The effects of this decline were particularly acute for coastal cities such as Philistine Ashkelon. This paper examines the response to this crisis in Philistia by examining redactional strata in the Deuteronomistic History that might speak to the period of early Philistine activity in the highlands. Through the memories preserved in these texts and in archaeological results from the late Iron Age I–early Iron Age IIA, it is argued that the Philistines reacted to the loss of Mediterranean trade by conducting raids that devastated rural highland settlements.