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1 Samuel
Chapter Five
New King James Version (NKJV)
INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 5
This
chapter relates how that the ark being brought by the Philistines to Ashdod,
and placed in the temple of their idol, that fell down before it, 1 Samuel 5:1, that
the hand of the Lord was upon the men of Ashdod, and smote them with emerods, 1 Samuel 5:6 and
being carried to Gath, the men of Gath were smitten likewise with the same, 1 Samuel 5:8, and
after that the men of Ekron, whither it also was carried, 1 Samuel 5:10.
1 Samuel 5:1 Then the
Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
YLT
1And the Philistines have
taken the ark of God, and bring it in from Eben-Ezer to Ashdod,
And the Philistines took the ark of God,.... Which
fell into their hands, Israel being beaten, and caused to flee, and the priests
that had the care of the ark slain; and when possessed of it, they did not
destroy it, nor take out of it what was in it, only took it up:
and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. Ebenezer was
the place where the camp of Israel was pitched, 1 Samuel 4:1 and
near to which the battle was fought. Ashdod was one of the five principalities
of the Philistines, the same with Azotus, Acts 8:40. The
distance between these two places, according to BuntingF17Travels of
the Patriarchs, &c. p. 122. was one hundred and sixty miles; though one
would think the distance from each other was not so great: why it was carried
to Ashdod is not plain; perhaps it might be the nearest place of note in their
country; and certain it is that it was one of their most famous cities, if not
the most famous; See Gill on Isaiah 20:1, and
had a famous idol temple in it.
1 Samuel 5:2 2 When
the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon[a] and set it
by Dagon.
YLT
2and the Philistines take
the ark of God and bring it into the house of Dagon, and set it near Dagon.
When the Philistines took the ark of God,.... And had
brought it to Ashdod:
they brought it into the house of Dagon; a temple
dedicated to that idol, and in which his image stood; of which See Gill on Judges 16:23,
and set it by Dagon; by the side of him,
either in honour to the ark, as Abarbinel, designing to give it homage and
adoration, as to their own deity; for though the Gentiles did not choose to
change their gods, yet they would add the gods of other nations to them; and
such the Philistines might take the ark to be: or else, as Procopius Gazaeus,
they brought it into their idol's temple, as a trophy of victory, and as a
spoil taken from their enemies, and which they dedicated to their idol. LaniadoF18Cli
Yaker, fol. 162. 4. observes, that the word here used signifies servitude, as
in Genesis 33:15 and
that the ark was set here to minister to, or serve their god Dagon. The temple
of Dagon at Ashdod or Azotus was in being in the times of the Maccabees, and
was burnt by Jonathan,"83 The horsemen also, being scattered in the field,
fled to Azotus, and went into Bethdagon, their idol's temple, for safety. 84
But Jonathan set fire on Azotus, and the cities round about it, and took their
spoils; and the temple of Dagon, with them that were fled into it, he burned
with fire.' (1 Maccabees 10)
1 Samuel 5:3 3 And
when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon, fallen
on its face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. So they took
Dagon and set it in its place again.
YLT
3And the Ashdodites rise
early on the morrow, and lo, Dagon is fallen on its face to the earth, before
the ark of Jehovah; and they take Dagon, and put it back to its place.
And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, Either the
people, the inhabitants of the place, who came early to pay their devotions to
their idol, before they went on their business; or the priests of the idol, who
came to sacrifice in the morning:
and, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before
the ark of the Lord; as if he was subject to it, and giving adoration to it, and
owning it was above him, and had superior power over him:
and they took Dagon, and set him in his place again; having no
notion that it was owing to the ark of God, or to the God of Israel, that he
was fallen, but that it was a matter of chance.
1 Samuel 5:4 4 And
when they arose early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to
the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and
both the palms of its hands were broken off on the threshold; only
Dagon’s torso[b] was left
of it.
YLT
4And they rise early in the
morning on the morrow, and lo, Dagon is fallen on its face to the earth, before
the ark of Jehovah, and the head of Dagon, and the two palms of its hands are
cut off at the threshold, only the fishy part hath been left to him;
And when they arose early on the morrow morning,.... For the
same purpose as before; unless they had any curiosity to indulge, to see
whether the ark and Dagon agreed better together, if they had any suspicion
that the former mischance was to be attributed to some variance and
disagreement between them:
behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the
ark of the Lord: again, and in a worse condition than before:
and the head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands, were cut
off upon the threshold; of the temple, upon which he fell with such force, that the
threshold cut off his head, and both his hands; which signified he had neither
wisdom to contrive for his own safety, nor strength and power to defend
himself; and therefore of what advantage could he be to his votaries? This may
be an emblem of the fall of idolatry in the Gentile world, before the preaching
of Christ and his Gospel in it; or of the idol of man's righteousness, which is
set up, though it cannot stand, against the righteousness of Christ, and of
man's renouncing that, when convinced of the weakness and insufficiency of it,
and submitting to the righteousness of Christ:
only the stump of Dagon was left to him: his body, as
the Targum, his head and hands being cut off; or, as it is in the Hebrew text,
only Dagon was left; that is, the fishy part of this idol; for "Dag"
signifies a fish; and, as Kimchi relates, this idol, from the navel upwards,
had the form of a man, and from thence downwards the form of a fish; and it was
the lower part that was left; See Gill on Judges 16:23.
1 Samuel 5:5 5 Therefore
neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house tread on the
threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
YLT
5therefore the priests of
Dagon, and all those coming into the house of Dagon, tread not on the threshold
of Dagon, in Ashdod, till this day.
Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into
Dagon's house,.... Neither the priests that continually attended the worship
and service of Dagon, nor the people that came there to pay their devotions to
him:
tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day: but used to
leap over it, either reckoning it sacred because touched by their idol, which
fell upon it; or rather, as it should seem, in a way of detestation, because it
had been the means of cutting off the head and hands of their idol; and this
custom not only continued to the latter days of Samuel, the writer of this
book; but even among the Philistines in one place or another to the times of
Zephaniah, who seems to allude to it, Zephaniah 1:9. In
later times there was another deity worshipped at Ashdod; according to MasiusF19Comment.
in Jos. xv. 47. , the Philistine Venus, or Astarte, was worshipped in this
place; though perhaps she may be no other than Atergatis, or Adergatis, which
with SeldenF20De Dis. Syr. Syntagu. l. 2. c. 3. p. 267. is only a
corruption of Addir-dag, the magnificent fish, in which form Dagon is supposed
to be; so the Phoenician goddess Derceto, worshipped at Ashkelon had the face
of a woman, and the other part was all fish; though Ben Gersom says Dagon was
in the form of a man, and which is confirmed by the Complutensian edition of
the Septuagint, which on 1 Samuel 5:4 reads,
"the soles of his feet were cut off"; which is a much better reading
than the common one, "the soles of his hands", which is not sense; by
which it appears that he had head, hands, and feet; wherefore it seems most
likely that he had his name from Dagon, signifying corn: See Gill on Judges 16:23.
1 Samuel 5:6 6 But the hand of the Lord was heavy on
the people of Ashdod, and He ravaged them and struck them with tumors,[c] both
Ashdod and its territory.
YLT
6And the hand of Jehovah is
heavy on the Ashdodites, and He maketh them desolate, and smiteth them with
emerods, Ashdod and its borders.
But the hand of the Lord was heavy on them of Ashdod,.... Not only
on their idol, but on themselves; it had crushed him to pieces, and now it fell
heavy on them to their destruction:
and he destroyed them; either by the disease
after mentioned they were smitten with, or rather with some other, since that
seems not to be mortal, though painful; it may be with the pestilence:
and smote them with emerods; more properly
haemorrhoids, which, as Kimchi says, was the name of a disease, but he says not
what; Ben Gersom calls it a very painful disease, from whence comes a great
quantity of blood. JosephusF21Antiqu. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1. takes it
to be the dysentery or bloody flux; it seems to be what we commonly call the
piles, and has its name in Hebrew from the height of them, rising up sometimes
into high large tumours:
even Ashdod and the coasts thereof; not only the inhabitants
of the city were afflicted with this disease, but those of the villages round
about.
1 Samuel 5:7 7 And when the men of Ashdod
saw how it was, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain
with us, for His hand is harsh toward us and Dagon our god.”
YLT
7And the men of Ashdod see
that [it is] so, and have said, `The ark of the God of Israel doth not abide
with us, for hard hath been His hand upon us, and upon Dagon our god.'
And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so,.... That many
of their inhabitants were taken away by death, and others afflicted with a
painful disease; all which they imputed to the ark being among them:
they said, the ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us; like the
Gergesenes, who besought Christ to depart their coasts, having more regard for
their swine than for him:
for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon, our god, not the hand
of the ark, unless they took it for a god, but the hand of the God of Israel;
in this they were right, and seem to have understood the case better than the
other lords they after consulted; his hand was upon Dagon, as appeared his fall
before the ark, and upon them by smiting with the haemorrhoids, the memory of
which abode with the Philistines for ages afterwards; for we are toldF23Herodot.
Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 105. that the Scythians, having plundered the temple of
Venus at Ashkelon, one of their five principalities, the goddess inflicted upon
them the female disease, or the haemorrhoids; which shows that it was thought
to be a disease inflicted by way of punishment for sacrilege, and that it was
still remembered what the Philistines suffered for a crime of the like nature.
1 Samuel 5:8 8 Therefore they sent and
gathered to themselves all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “What shall
we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” And they answered, “Let the ark of
the God of Israel be carried away to Gath.” So they carried the ark of the God
of Israel away.
YLT
8And they send and gather
all the princes of the Philistines unto them, and say, `What do we do to the
ark of the God of Israel?' and they say, `To Gath let the ark of the God of
Israel be brought round;' and they bring round the ark of the God of Israel;
They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines
unto them,.... The other four lords, for there were five with this; see Joshua 13:3,
and said, what shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? they no doubt
told them what they and their idol had suffered on account of it, and the
resolution they were come to that it should be no longer with them; and therefore
desire to know what must be done with it, whether they should return it to the
people of Israel, or dispose of it somewhere else; it is probable some might be
for the former, but the greater part were not, and were for keeping it in their
possession somewhere or another:
and they answered, let the ark of the God of Israel be carried
about unto Gath; which was another of the five principalities of the Philistines,
and not far from Ashdod; according to JeromF24Comment. in Hierem. c.
25. fol. 151. B. , it is included in the remnant of Ashdod, Jeremiah 25:20 and
according to BuntingF25Travels of the Patriarchs, &c. p. 123.
but four miles from it. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions make this to
be the answer of the men of Gath, the one reading it,"and they of Gath
said, let the ark of God come to us;'and the other,"they of Gath answered,
let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about;'for they suspected, as
Procopius Gazaeus observes, that the destruction did not come from God, but was
a disease arising from some pestilential cause. They perhaps imagined it was in
the air in and about Ashdod, or that though the situation of the ark was not
liked, in another place it might be otherwise, and more agreeable:
and they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither; they seem not
to carry it directly to the place, but carried it in a round about way, as if
they had a mind to give it an airing, before they fixed it any where.
1 Samuel 5:9 9 So it was, after they had
carried it away, that the hand of the Lord was against the city with
a very great destruction; and He struck the men of the city, both small and
great, and tumors broke out on them.
YLT
9and it cometh to pass after
they have brought it round, that the hand of Jehovah is against the city -- a
very great destruction; and He smiteth the men of the city, from small even
unto great; and break forth on them do emerods.
And it was so, that after they had carried it about,.... And at
last placed it in the city of Gath:
the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great
destruction: greater than that at Ashdod, more persons were destroyed; the
distemper sent among them was more epidemic and mortal:
and he smote the men of the city, both small and great; high and low,
persons of every class, rank, and station, young and old, men, women, and
children:
and they had emerods in their secret parts; and so had
the men of Ashdod; and the design of this expression is, not to point at the
place where they were, which it is well known they are always in those parts,
but the different nature of them; the emerods or piles of the men of Ashdod
were more outward, these more inward, and so more painful, and not so easy to
come at, and more difficult of cure; for the words may be rendered:
and the emerods were hidden unto themF26וישתרו להם עפלים
"et absconditi erant", Montanus; so Vatablus, Junius &
Tremellius. ; were inward, and out of sight; and perhaps this disease as
inflicted on them might be more grievous than it commonly is now. JosephusF1Ut
supra. (Antiqu. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1.) wrongly makes these to be the
Ashkalonites, when they were the men of Gath.
1 Samuel 5:10 10 Therefore they sent the
ark of God to Ekron. So it was, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the
Ekronites cried out, saying, “They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to
us, to kill us and our people!”
YLT
10And they send the ark of
God to Ekron, and it cometh to pass, at the coming in of the ark of God to
Ekron, that the Ekronites cry out, saying, `They have brought round unto us the
ark of the God of Israel, to put us to death -- and our people.'
Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron,.... Another
of the five principalities of the Philistines, about ten miles from Gath, where
Baalzebub, or the god of the fly, was worshipped:
and it came to pass, that as the ark of God came to Ekron; and had been
there some little time:
that the Ekronites cried out; when they perceived the
hand of God was upon them, as upon the other cities; these were the chief
magistrates of the city, with the lord of them, as appears by what follows:
saying, they have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us; from one city
to another, and at length to us:
to slay us and our people; not that this was their
intention, but so it was eventually.
1 Samuel 5:11 11 So they sent and gathered
together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “Send away the ark of the
God of Israel, and let it go back to its own place, so that it does not kill us
and our people.” For there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city;
the hand of God was very heavy there.
YLT
11And they send and gather
all the princes of the Philistines, and say, `Send away the ark of the God of
Israel, and it turneth back to its place, and it doth not put us to death --
and our people;' for there hath been a deadly destruction throughout all the
city, very heavy hath the hand of God been there,
So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the
Philistines,.... As the men of Ashdod had done before on the same account, 1 Samuel 5:8.
and said, send away the ark of the God of Israel; as these
lords were united in their government, and made one common cause of it against
Israel, one could not dispose of this capture without the consent of the rest;
otherwise the lord of Ekron, with his princes, were clearly in it that it was right
and best to send it away out of any of their principalities:
and let it go again to its own place; to the land
of Israel and Shiloh there, though to that it never returned more:
that it slay us not, and our people; that is, all of them,
for great numbers had been slain already, as follows:
for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; a mortal
disease went through the whole city, and swept away a multitude of people:
the hand of God was very heavy there; it seems by
the expression to haste been heavier on the inhabitants of this city than upon
those of Ashdod and Gath, which made them the more pressing to get rid of the
ark.
1 Samuel 5:12 12 And the men who did not
die were stricken with the tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
YLT
12and the men who have not
died have been smitten with emerods, and the cry of the city goeth up into the
heavens.
And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods,.... As the
inhabitants of Ashdod and Gath had been; this shows that those that died did
not die of that disease, but of some other; very likely the pestilence:
and the cry of the city went up to heaven; not that it
was heard and regarded there, but the phrase is used to denote the greatness of
it, how exceeding loud and clamorous it was; partly on the account of the death
of so many of the inhabitants, their relations and friends; and partly because
of the intolerable pain they endured through the emerods. There is something of
this history preserved in a story wrongly told by HerodotusF2Clio,
sive, l. 1. c. 105. , who relates that the Scythians returning from Egypt
passed through Ashkelon, a city of Syria (one of the five principalities of the
Philistines), and that some of them robbed the temple of Venus there; for which
the goddess sent on them and their posterity the disease of emerods, and that
the Scythians themselves acknowledged that they were troubled with it on that
account.
──《John Gill’s
Exposition of the Bible》
New King James
Version (NKJV)