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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 5:7 - 5:7
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“When the Ashdodites saw that it was so,” they were unwilling to keep the ark of the God of Israel any longer, because the hand of Jehovah lay heavy upon them and their god Dagon; whereupon the princes of the Philistines (סַרְנֵי, as in Jos 13:3, etc.) assembled together, and came to the resolution to “let the ark of the God of Israel turn (i.e., be taken) to Gath” (1Sa 5:8). The princes of the Philistines probably imagined that the calamity which the Ashdodites attributed to the ark of God, either did not proceed from the ark, i.e., from the God of Israel, or if actually connected with the presence of the ark, simply arose from the fact that the city itself was hateful to the God of the Israelites, or that the Dagon of Ashdod was weaker than the Jehovah of Israel: they therefore resolved to let the ark be taken to Gath in order to pacify the Ashdodites. According to our account, the city of Gath seems to have stood between Ashdod and Akron (see at Jos 13:3).