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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - 1 Samuel 5:1 - 5:7
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The Ark in Ashdod.
v. l And the philistines took the ark of God, which they had captured in the great battle, and brought it from Ebenezer, as the place was afterward called, unto Ashdod, a city of Philistia almost due west of the battlefield, on the Mediterranean, apparently the leading city in the federation of city-states among the Philistines.
v. 2. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, their chief idol, to whose honor they had erected sanctuaries in all their principal cities, Jdg_16:23, and set it by Dagon, near the picture or statue of this deity, which had a human head and hands, but a fish-body, to symbolize the fruitfulness of the sea, as represented by the fish.
v. 3. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon, to whom they ascribed their victory over the Israelites, was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord, in an attitude of worship, this being intended as a sign to the Philistines that the God of Israel was not to be conquered, but that every idol and so-called deity would have to sink to the ground before His majesty and power. And they, the priests of the Philistines, took Dagon and set him in his place again, apparently under the impression that the figure had toppled over by chance, not having been set up securely.
v. 4. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, the second morning after the arrival of the ark, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, in the same posture of abject adoration; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands, the hollow forms of his hands, were cut off, severed as by a clean stroke, upon the threshold, namely, that of the inner sanctuary, in which the idol was placed, where the parts might be trodden on by everyone who entered; only the stump of Dagon, his fish-body, that which was properly the Fish-god, was left to him.
v. 5. Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, of whom there seems to have been a special order, nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day, all visitors to his shrine carefully stepped over the door-sill, lest they should desecrate the place where the head of the god had lain.
v. 6. But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, in an oppressive visitation, probably in the form of a plague of field-mice, to which the context seems to point, and he destroyed them, caused the death of many of them, and smote them with emerods, with an infectious skin-disease in the form of boils and ulcers, even Ashdod and the coast thereof, the entire vicinity.
v. 7. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, rightly concluding that it was the God of Israel who was striking them, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, they regarded it as the medium, as the bearer of all the evils; for His hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon, our god. Thus God proved to the heathen, as He does to the unbelievers at times to this day, that all idols are nothing before Him, that those things in which the world places its trust crumble to pieces before the manifestation of His majesty and righteousness.