1 Samuelchapter 5
12 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 1 Samuel Overview.
The account of the ark continues here, and for the length of this chapter no Israelite speaks or acts. It was told to a nation that had lost the ark and had no means of learning what had become of it. The first hearers knew that a captured god was set up in the temple of the god who had won the battle. The chapter moves from city to city across the Philistine plain, and it carries a grim humour. Listen for what is found each morning in the temple, and for the growing alarm in each city in turn. Ask who is winning now.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had just lost the ark and had no way of knowing what was happening to it
- What
- The captured ark topples the image of Dagon at Ashdod and brings a plague of tumours on three Philistine cities in turn.
- Where
- Ashdod with its temple of Dagon, then Gath, then Ekron, three of the five Philistine cities on the coastal plain.
- When
- About 1085 BC, in the first of the seven months named at 6:1.
- Why
- To show that the LORD defended His own name when Israel could not defend the ark.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to the Philistines rather than to Israel. No Israelite speaks in it and no Israelite acts in it. The five lords of the Philistine cities meet in council three times over what to do with the ark they have won.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Dagon was the chief god of the Philistine cities and his temple at Ashdod is where the ark is set. Placing a captured emblem beside the victorious god was the ordinary practice of the ancient Near East, and it declared which god had won the battle. A first hearer read the placement as a public claim and a reader today has to be told what the claim was.
The occasion is that claim and its collapse. Dagon is found fallen before the ark on the first morning and his priests set him up again. On the second morning his head and both hands lie cut off on the threshold. The text notes the custom that followed, that no one at Ashdod trod on that threshold until the day the account was written.
The plague that follows is named with a Hebrew word the older English versions render as emerods, tumours or swellings. The golden mice sent back with the ark in the next chapter suggest that the outbreak was carried by rodents, and several commentators have read the two together.
The lords of the five cities acted together in council rather than under one king, which is why the decision has to be taken three times, once for each city the ark is moved to.
Significance
Israel could not defend the ark and the ark did not need defending. That is the chapter's whole argument, and it was addressed to a nation that had just watched its sanctuary fall.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The Ekronites cry out before the plague reaches them, because they have heard what happened at Ashdod and Gath. Their cry is the clearest confession any Philistine makes in the account.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi is the only commentator the corpus carries with text on this chapter, in the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., under CC-BY. On the idol the ark was set beside he says it "was made in the form of a fish" (Rashi on I Samuel 5:2:1). He reports a second description, that from the waist up it had a human form with hands, and from the waist down it looked like a fish (same ref). On the threshold of the temple he gives the ordinary Hebrew equivalent of the word (Rashi on I Samuel 5:4:1). On the affliction of Ashdod he reads the verb as desolation (Rashi on I Samuel 5:6:1). On the plague itself he names the part of the body struck, and reports that mice came into it (Rashi on I Samuel 5:6:2). On the men of Gath he follows the Masora, which lists the verb among words written with one letter and read as another (Rashi on I Samuel 5:9:1). The sense he gives is that "there was a plague in the hidden parts of the body" (same ref). On the deadly upheaval at Ekron he says every such upheaval in Scripture is caused by thunder (Rashi on I Samuel 5:11:1). He takes the origin from the thunder against the Philistines later in this book, and cites the Aggadah of Thirty-Two Rules of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose Haglili (same ref). Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment at eighteen verses, and the corpus holds no English version of any of them, so they stand as citations. They are Radak on I Samuel 5:2:1, 5:3:1, 5:4:1, 5:5:1, 5:8:1, 5:9:1 and 5:10:1. Beside them stand Metzudat David on I Samuel 5:3:1, 5:5:1, 5:7:1, 5:10:1, 5:11:1 and 5:12:1, and Malbim on I Samuel 5:1:1, 5:2:1, 5:3:1, 5:8:1 and 5:12:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records fifteen rabbinic locators on this chapter, ten of them Midrash and five Talmud, each a locator without text. The ark carried to Ashdod draws Midrash Shmuel 11:4, and its setting beside the idol draws Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 4:1. The idol found fallen draws Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Megilat Esther, Midrash on the Megillah (of Esther) 3. The broken head and hands on the threshold draw Avodah Zarah 41b:4 and Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 6:9:4. Verse 5 draws Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:2:4 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 47:22:1. The hand of the LORD heavy on Ashdod draws Midrash Shmuel 10:4, Midrash Shmuel 11:6, Midrash Tehillim 93:2, Sifrei Bamidbar 88:1 and Tractate Soferim 9:8. The ark carried round to Gath draws Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:1:5 and Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Melechet HaMishkan 1:25, and the affliction there draws Sifrei Zuta 11:5:4. The rabbis teach in these places, and this site reports them as their teaching rather than as a rule of the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Samuel 5:2:1, 5:4:1, 5:6:1, 5:6:2, 5:9:1 and 5:11:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Samuel 5:2:1, 5:3:1, 5:4:1, 5:5:1, 5:8:1, 5:9:1 and 5:10:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Samuel 5:3:1, 5:5:1, 5:7:1, 5:10:1, 5:11:1 and 5:12:1, cited only; Malbim, Malbim on I Samuel 5:1:1, 5:2:1, 5:3:1, 5:8:1 and 5:12:1, cited only.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Dagon face down before the ark
1 Samuel 5:1-2
The ark travels as plunder to Ashdod, carried by no priest and no army of Israel. The Philistines set it in “the temple of Dagon” beside his statue, so the God of Israel and the god of Ashdod share one roof for a night. This opens the thread that runs from Shiloh to Zion, and its first move shows the ark needs no defender to make its own case.
1 Samuel 5:1
“Ashdod--or Azotus, one of the five Philistine satrapies, and a place of great strength. It was an inland town, thirty-four miles north of Gaza, now called Esdud.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The Philistines set the ark beside Dagon, their chief god, as a trophy of his victory over the God of Israel. Albert Barnes compared Judges 16:23, where the Philistines praised Dagon for giving Samson into their hands. By morning Dagon lay on his face.
1 Samuel 5:2
“The Ark of the Lord was captured by the Philistines though it was guarded by all the men of arms that Israel could muster for the battle. It came to no hurt when it was surrounded by unarmed priests—although the times were exceedingly disturbed and perilous all through the dreary period of the Judges, yet never was the Ark a captive till it was protected by carnal weapons. When those whom God had ordained to take care of the Ark of the Covenant had it in their charge, it was safe enough.”
1 Samuel 5:3-5
On the first morning Dagon lies “fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD”, and they set him up again. On the second morning his head and hands lie broken off on the threshold, and “Only the torso remained”. Henry reads the two mornings as an idol's kingdom giving way before the ark, and the priests of Dagon still avoid the threshold “to this day”.
1 Samuel 5:3
“They of Ashdod arose early on the morrow - Probably to perform some act of their superstition in the temple of their idol. Dagon was fallen upon his face - This was one proof, which they little expected, of the superiority of the God of Israel. Set him in his place again - Supposing his fall might have been merely accidental.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 5:3
“Down he comes before the ark, directly towards it (though the ark was set on one side of him), as it were, pointing to the conqueror, to whom he is constrained to yield and do homage. Note, The kingdom of Satan will certainly fall before the kingdom of Christ, error before truth, profaneness before godliness, and corruption before grace in the hearts of the faithful.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The second fall ends any talk of accident. Dagon lies fallen on his face again, with his head and hands broken off on the threshold, and John Wesley observed that the priests who returned him to his place made his shame more public. Adam Clarke read the torso that remained as the fish-shaped part of the idol.
1 Samuel 5:4
“Only the stump of Dagon was left - Literally, Only דגן dagon (i.e., the little fish) was left. It has already been remarked that Dagon had the head, arms and hands of a man or woman, and that the rest of the idol was in the form of a fish, to which Horace is supposed to make allusion in the following words: - Desinat in piscem mulisr formosa superne “The upper part resembling a beautiful woman; the lower, a fish.” All that was human in his form was broken off from what resembled a fish.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Samuel 5:4
“Thus the priests by concealing Dagon's shame before, make it more evident and infamous. The stump - Hebrew. only dagon, that is, that part of it from which it was called Dagon, namely the fishy part, for Dag in Hebrew signifies a fish.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 5:4
“Well, the misshapen monster is by this fall made to appear, (1.) Very ridiculous, and worthy to be despised. A pretty figure Dagon made now, when the fall had anatomized him, and shown how the human part and the fishy part were artificially put together, which perhaps the ignorant devotees had been made to believe was done by miracle!”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The threshold where Dagon's head and hands lay became holy ground to his priests. Adam Clarke observed that the priests of Dagon, by refusing to step on it, kept his disgrace alive in the temple of Dagon itself. Albert Barnes dated the custom as late as Josiah.
1 Samuel 5:5
“Tread on the threshold - Because the arms, etc., of Dagon were broken off by his fall on the threshold, the threshold became sacred, and neither his priests nor worshippers ever tread on the threshold. Thus it was ordered, in the Divine providence, that, by a religious custom of their own, they should perpetuate their disgrace, the insufficiency of their worship, and the superiority of the God of Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 5:5
“Instead of despising Dagon, for the threshold's sake that beheaded him, they were almost ready to worship the threshold because it was the block on which he was beheaded, and will never set their feet on that on which Dagon lost his head, shaming those who tread under foot the blood of the covenant and trample on things truly sacred.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Tumors in Ashdod, then Gath, then Ekron
1 Samuel 5:6-7
the hand of the Lord was heavy: The hand of the Lord falls on Ashdod and its vicinity, “afflicting them with tumors”. The men of Ashdod read the sign and want the ark gone, because “His hand is heavy upon us and upon our god Dagon”. Clarke takes their own words as proof that they conclude Israel's God beat their god in his own city.
1 Samuel 5:6
“Smote them with emerods - The word עפלים apholim, from עפל aphal, to be elevated, probably means the disease called the bleeding piles, which appears to have been accompanied with dysentery, bloody flux, and ulcerated anus.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
And when the men of Ashdod saw: The men of Ashdod confess that the hand of the God of Israel lies on Dagon as well as on them. Adam Clarke saw them learning that their victory in chapter 4 owed nothing to Dagon's strength. Matthew Henry saw them choosing to keep God at a distance.
1 Samuel 5:7
“His hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god - Here the end was completely answered: they now saw that they had not prevailed against Israel, on account of their god being more powerful than Jehovah; and they now feel how easily this God can confound and destroy their whole nation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 5:7
“Carnal hearts, when they smart under the judgments of God, would rather, if it were possible, put him far from them than enter into covenant and communion with him, and make him their friend. Thus the men of Ashdod resolve, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us. It is resolved to change the place of its imprisonment.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 5:8-9
The rulers of the Philistines meet in council, and their answer, “It must be moved to Gath”, only moves the trouble to another city. The Lord's hand follows it there, “afflicting the men of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors”. Clarke identifies these rulers as the heads of the five federated cities of Joshua 13, who act together in council.
1 Samuel 5:8
“The lords of the Philistines - The word סרני sarney, which we translate lords, is rendered by the Chaldee טורני tureney, tyrants. The Syriac is the same. By the Vulgate and Septuagint, satrapae, satraps. Palestine was divided into five satrapies: Ashdod, Ekron, Askelon, Gath, and Gaza. See Jos 13:8. But these were all federates and acted under one general government, for which they assembled in council.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 5:8
“Whether their curiosity led them to open it, and to read what was written with the finger of God on the two tables of stone that were in it, we are not told; perhaps they looked no further than the golden outside and the cherubim that covered it, like children that are more affected with the fine binding of their bibles than with the precious matter contained in them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Gath was the city of giants, and Matthew Henry noted that its strength was no defence against this plague. The verse names young and old alike among the stricken. Albert Barnes observed that moving the ark only spread the calamity.
1 Samuel 5:9
“The hand of the Lord was against the city - As it was at Ashdod, so it was at Gath. The Vulgate says, Et computrescebant prominenter extales eorum; which conveys the idea of a bloody flux, dysentery, and ulcerated anus; and it adds, what is not to be found in the Hebrew text, nor many of the versions, except some traces in the Septuagint, Et fecerunt sibi sedes pelliceas, “And they made unto themselves seats of skins;” for the purpose of sitting more easy, on account of the malady already mentioned.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 5:10-12
the Ekronites cried out: Ekron cries out when the ark arrives, “They have brought us the ark of the God of Israel in order to kill us and our people”, certain of their fate after Ashdod and Gath. The rulers assemble again and agree to send it home, for “the hand of God was heavy upon it”. Even those who survive are struck, and “the outcry of the city went up to heaven”.
Ekron is the first city to ask that the ark return to its own place. Matthew Henry observed that the hand of God stayed heavy on the city while the rulers deliberated, and every move of the ark had spread the judgment further. Many died during the council.
1 Samuel 5:11
“Send away the ark - It appears that it had been received at Ekron, for there was a deadly destruction through the whole city. They therefore concluded that the ark should be sent back to Shiloh.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Two judgments fall on Ekron: some die at once, and the survivors suffer the tumors. Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry traced the disease to Deuteronomy 28:27, where God threatened it against a disobedient Israel. Psalm 78:66 remembers this blow.
1 Samuel 5:12
“The men that died not - Some it seems were smitten with instant death; others with the haemorrhoids, and there was a universal consternation; and the cry of the city went up to heaven - it was an exceeding great cry. It does not appear that the Philistines had any correct knowledge of the nature of Jehovah, though they seemed to acknowledge his supremacy. They imagined that every country, district, mountain, and valley, had its peculiar deity; who, in its place, was supreme over all others.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 5:12
“The Psalmist, speaking of this sore judgment upon the Philistines, describes it thus: God smote his enemies in the hinder parts, and put them to a perpetual reproach, Ps. lxxviii. The emerods (which we call the piles, and perhaps it was then a more grievous disease than it is now) is threatened among the judgments that would be the fruit of the curse, Deut. xxviii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, the centre of the ark account, told entirely from the Philistine side, as Samuel classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The morning, and then the morning after | Verse 3 opens with the men of Ashdod rising early on the morrow and finding Dagon fallen before the ark. Verse 4 opens with the same words on the next day and finds him fallen again, with his head and both hands cut off on the threshold. The repetition is the argument. Once could be an accident, and the second morning settles it.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Samuel 5:4. | 1 Samuel 5:3, 1 Samuel 5:4 |
| The hand, heavy on each city in turn | The hand of the LORD is heavy on Ashdod at verse 6, on Gath at verse 9 and on Ekron at verse 11. The clause is repeated almost word for word as the ark moves, and small and great are struck in each place. The Philistines themselves use the phrase at verse 7, so the narrator and the sufferers name the cause the same way.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Samuel 5:6. | 1 Samuel 5:6, 1 Samuel 5:7, 1 Samuel 5:9, 1 Samuel 5:11 |
| The three cities, counted out | Ashdod takes the ark at verse 1, Gath receives it at verse 8 and Ekron at verse 10. Three of the five Philistine cities appear in order, and the lords meet in council each time because no single king could decide for them. The remaining two cities, Gaza and Ashkelon, appear in the next chapter when the guilt offering is counted by city.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Samuel 5:8, identifying the lords as the rulers of the five federated cities of Joshua 13. | 1 Samuel 5:1, 1 Samuel 5:8, 1 Samuel 5:10 |
| The broken god and the heavy hand | The word behind glory in Ichabod at 4:21 is kabod, whose root sense is weight. The same family of words gives the heavy hand of the LORD on Ashdod at verse 6. Israel says the weight has departed and the Philistines find out exactly where it went. This site's word ladder for the book records the root sense under h3519.This site's published word ladder for 1 Samuel, src/components/book/dossier-content/1-samuel.ts, the wordLadder entry for h3519, copied from the lexicon_entries row. | 1 Samuel 4:21, 1 Samuel 5:6, 1 Samuel 5:11 |
What the chapter is built on
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
The pattern of a god falling before the God of Israel goes back to the exodus. Exodus 12:12 says that the LORD would execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt, and Numbers 33:4 repeats it. This chapter carries out the same judgment on a god of Canaan with no Israelite army in the field.
The threshold custom at verse 5 is the kind of note the books of Samuel plant several times, a practice still observed when the account was written. The great stone at Beth-shemesh in the next chapter is another.
The New Testament's use
This chapter is not quoted in the New Testament. The nearest later use of its argument is Paul at 2 Corinthians 6:16, asking what agreement the temple of God has with idols, and at 1 Corinthians 10:20 on what the nations sacrifice to. Neither passage cites Dagon.
Dagon himself returns in Scripture only twice more, at Judges 16:23 where the Philistines praise him after taking Samson, and at 1 Chronicles 10:10 where Saul's head is fastened in his temple. The three passages frame the Philistine story from Samson to Gilboa.
The reading the chapter has drawn argument over
The nature of the plague has been read two ways, and the difference turns on the golden mice of the next chapter.
One reading takes the swellings and the mice together as a rodent-borne outbreak, on the ground that the Philistines' own offering names both the affliction and the creature that carried it. Adam Clarke and John Gill both weigh this reading from the text's own evidence. The other reading keeps to what the Hebrew word states, a painful swelling, and treats the mice as a separate ruin of the harvest named at 6:5.
The text gives the affliction and the offering and does not connect them. Both readings stand on the same two chapters.
The thing the chapter states before its time
The ark is defended by nobody and defends itself. Israel had carried it into battle as equipment and lost it, and the chapter shows that the loss put nothing at risk. The argument is made against an idol, in an idol's own temple, with no priest, no army and no prayer in the room.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Samuel 5:6 to 12; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Samuel 5:1 to 5 and This site's published structure for 1 Samuel, src/components/book/dossier-content/1-samuel.ts, the chiasm entry for the ark account, which places the hand of the LORD on Ashdod, Gath and Ekron at 5:6 to 12 as the centre of the unit.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.