Bible Commentaries

Humiliation of the Philistines by Means of the Ark of the Covenant - 1 Samuel 5-7:1

Whilst the Israelites were mourning over the loss of the ark of God, thePhilistines were also to derive no pleasure from their booty, but rather tolearn that the God of Israel, who had given up to them His greatestsanctuary to humble His own degenerate nation, was the only true God,beside Whom there were no other gods. Not only was the principal deityof the Philistines thrown down into the dust and dashed to pieces by theglory of Jehovah; but the Philistines themselves were so smitten, that theirprinces were compelled to send back the ark into the land of Israel,together with a trespass-offering, to appease the wrath of God, whichpressed so heavily upon them.

The Ark in the Land of the Philistines. - 1 Samuel 5:1-6. The Philistinescarried the ark from Ebenezer, where they had captured it, into theircapital, Ashdod (Esdud; see at Joshua 13:3), and placed it there in the templeof Dagon, by the side of the idol Dagon, evidently as a dedicatory offeringto this god of theirs, by whose help they imagined that they had obtainedthe victory over both the Israelites and their God. With regard to the imageof Dagon, compounded of man and fish, i.e., of a human body, with headand hands, and a fish's tail, see, in addition to Judges 16:23, Stark's Gaza,pp. 248ff., 308ff., and Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, pp. 466-7,where there is a bas-relief from Khorsabad, in which “a figure is seenswimming in the sea, with the upper part of the body resembling a beardedman, wearing the ordinary conical tiara of royalty, adorned with elephants'tusks, and the lower part resembling the body of a fish. It has the handlifted up, as if in astonishment or fear, and is surrounded by fishes, crabs,and other marine animals” (Stark, p. 308). As this bas-relief represents,according to Layard, the war of an Assyrian king with the inhabitants ofthe coast of Syria, most probably of Sargon, who had to carry on a longconflict with the Philistian towns, more especially with Ashdod, there canhardly be any doubt that we have a representation of the Philistian Dagonhere. This deity was a personification of the generative and vivifyingprinciple of nature, for which the fish with its innumerable multiplicationwas specially adapted, and set forth the idea of the giver of all earthlygood.

The next morning the Ashdodites found Dagon lying on his face upon theground before the ark of Jehovah, and restored him to his place again,evidently supposing that the idol had fallen or been thrown down by someaccident.

But they were obliged to give up this notion when they found the godlying on his face upon the ground again the next morning in front of the arkof Jehovah, and in fact broken to pieces, so that Dagon's head and the twohollow hands of his arms lay severed upon the threshold, and nothing wasleft but the trunk of the fish (דּגון). The word Dagon, in thislast clause, is used in an appellative sense, viz., the fishy part, or fish'sshape, from דּג, a fish. המּפתּן is no doubt thethreshold of the door of the recess in which the image was set up. Wecannot infer from this, however, as Thenius has done, that with the smalldimensions of the recesses in the ancient temples, if the image fell forward,the pieces named might easily fall upon the threshold. This naturalisticinterpretation of the miracle is not only proved to be untenable by theword כּרתות, since כּרוּת means cut off, and not broken off,but is also precluded by the improbability, not to say impossibility, of thething itself. For if the image of Dagon, which was standing by the side of the ark, wasthrown down towards the ark, so as to lie upon its face in front of it, thepieces that were broken off, viz., the head and hands, could not have fallensideways, so as to lie upon the threshold. Even the first fall of the image ofDagon was a miracle. From the fact that their god Dagon lay upon its facebefore the ark of Jehovah, i.e., lay prostrate upon the earth, as thoughworshipping before the God of Israel, the Philistines were to learn, thateven their supreme deity had been obliged to fall down before the majestyof Jehovah, the God of the Israelites. But as they did not discern themeaning of this miraculous sign, the second miracle was to show them theannihilation of their idol through the God of Israel, in such a way as topreclude every thought of accident. The disgrace attending the annihilationof their idol was probably to be heightened by the fact, that the pieces ofDagon that were smitten off were lying upon the threshold, inasmuch aswhat lay upon the threshold was easily trodden upon by any one whoentered the house. This is intimated in the custom referred to in 1 Samuel 5:5, thatin consequence of this occurrence, the priests of Dagon, and all whoentered the temple of Dagon at Ashdod, down to the time of the historianhimself, would not step upon the threshold of Dagon, i.e., the thresholdwhere Dagon's head and hands had lain, but stepped over the threshold(not “leaped over,” as many commentators assume on the ground of Zephaniah 1:5, which has nothing to do with the matter), that they might not touchwith their feet, and so defile, the place where the pieces of their god hadlain.

The visitation of God was not restricted to the demolition of the statue ofDagon, but affected the people of Ashdod as well. “The hand of Jehovahwas heavy upon the Ashdodites, and laid them waste.” השׁם, fromשׁמם, when applied to men, as in Micah 6:13, signifies to makedesolate not only by diseases, but also by the withdrawal or diminution ofthe means of subsistence, the devastation of the fields, and such like. Thatthe latter is included here, is evident from the dedicatory offerings withwhich the Philistines sought to mitigate the wrath of the God of theIsraelites (1 Samuel 6:4-5, 1 Samuel 6:11, 1 Samuel 6:18), although the verse before us simplymentions the diseases with which God visited them.

(Note: At the close of 1 Samuel 5:3 and 1 Samuel 5:6 the Septuagint contains somecomprehensive additions; viz., at the close of 1 Samuel 5:3: Καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ Κυρίου ἐπι τοὺς Ἀζωτίους καὶ ἐβασάνιζεν αὐτους , καὶ ἐπάταζεν αὐτους εἰς τάς ἕδρας αὐτων , τὴν Ἄζωτον καὶ τὰ ὅρια αὐτῆς ; and at the end of 1 Samuel 5:4: Καὶ μέσον τῆς χώρας αὐτῆς ἀνεφυησαν μύες καὶ ἐγένετο σύγχυσις θανάτου μεγάλη ἐν τῇ πολει . This last clause we also find in the Vulgate, expressed asfollows: Et eballiverunt villae et agri in medio regionis illius, et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magnae in civitateEwald'sdecision with regard to these clauses (Gesch. ii. p. 541) is, that theyare not wanted at 1 Samuel 5:3, 1 Samuel 5:6, but that they are all the morenecessary at 1 Samuel 6:1; whereas at 1 Samuel 5:3, 1 Samuel 5:6, they would rather injurethe sense. Thenius admits that the clause appended to 1 Samuel 5:3 is nothingmore than a second translation of our sixth verse, which has beeninterpolated by a copyist of the Greek in the wrong place; whereasthat of 1 Samuel 5:6 contains the original though somewhat corrupt text,according to which the Hebrew text should be emended. But an impartial examination would show very clearly, that all theseadditions are nothing more than paraphrases founded upon thecontext. The last part of the addition to 1 Samuel 5:6 is taken verbatim from1 Samuel 5:11, whilst the first part is a conjecture based upon 1 Samuel 6:4-5. Jerome, if indeed the addition in our text of the Vulgate reallyoriginated with him, and was not transferred into his version from theItala, did not venture to suppress the clause interpolated in theAlexandrian version. This is very evident from the words confusio mortis magnaewhich are a literal rendering of σύγχυσις θανάτου μεγάλη ; whereas in 1 Samuel 5:11, Jerome has given toמות מהוּמת, which the lxx rendered σύγχυσις θανάτου , the much more accurate rendering pavor mortisMoreover, neither the Syriac nor Targum Jonath. has this clause; sothat long before the time of Jerome, the Hebrew text existed in theform in which the Masoretes have handed it down to us.)

“And He smote them with עפלים, i.e., boils:” according to theRabbins, swellings on the anus, mariscae (see at Deuteronomy 28:27). For עפלים the Masoretes have invariably substituted טחרים, which is used in 1 Samuel 6:11, 1 Samuel 6:17, and was probably regarded as more decorous. Ashdod is amore precise definition of the word them, viz., Ashdod, i.e., theinhabitants of Ashdod and its territory.

“When the Ashdodites saw that it was so,” they were unwilling to keepthe ark of the God of Israel any longer, because the hand of Jehovah layheavy upon them and their god Dagon; whereupon the princes of thePhilistines (סרני, as in Joshua 13:3, etc.) assembled together, andcame to the resolution to “let the ark of the God of Israel turn (i.e., betaken) to Gath” (1 Samuel 5:8). The princes of the Philistines probably imaginedthat the calamity which the Ashdodites attributed to the ark of God, eitherdid not proceed from the ark, i.e., from the God of Israel, or if actuallyconnected with the presence of the ark, simply arose from the fact that thecity itself was hateful to the God of the Israelites, or that the Dagon ofAshdod was weaker than the Jehovah of Israel: they therefore resolved tolet the ark be taken to Gath in order to pacify the Ashdodites. Accordingto our account, the city of Gath seems to have stood between Ashdod andAkron (see at Joshua 13:3).

But when the ark was brought to Gath, the hand of Jehovah came uponthat city also with very great alarm. גּדולה מהוּמה is subordinated to the main sentence either adverbially or in the accusative. Jehovah smote the people of the city, small and great, so that boils brokeout upon their hinder parts.

They therefore sent the ark of God to Ekron, i.e., Akir, the north-westerncity of the Philistines (see at Joshua 13:3). But the Ekronites, who had beeninformed of what had taken place in Ashdod and Gath, cried out, when theark came into their city, “They have brought the ark of the God of Israel tome, to slay me and my people” (these words are to be regarded as spokenby the whole town); and they said to all the princes of the Philistineswhom they had called together, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel,that it may return to its place, and not slay me and my people. For deadlyalarm (מות מהוּמת, confusion of death, i.e., alarmproduced by many sudden deaths) ruled in the whole city; very heavy wasthe hand of God there. The people who did not die were smitten withboils, and the cry of the city ascended to heaven.” From this description,which simply indicates briefly the particulars of the plagues that Godinflicted upon Ekron, we may see very clearly that Ekron was visited evenmore severely than Ashdod and Gath. This was naturally the case. Thelonger the Philistines resisted and refused to recognise the chastening handof the living God in the plagues inflicted upon them, the more severelywould they necessarily be punished, that they might be brought at last tosee that the God of Israel, whose sanctuary they still wanted to keep as atrophy of their victory over that nation, was the omnipotent God, whowas able to destroy His foes.