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.