1 Samuel 5:1-6

The Ark of the Covenant among the Philistines

1 Now [the] Philistines had captured the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

2 Then [the] Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the temple of Dagon and placed it beside Dagon.

3 When the Ashdodites got up early the next morning, {there was} Dagon fallen with his face to the ground before the ark of Yahweh! So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.

4 When they got up early in the morning the next day, {there was} Dagon fallen [again] with his face to the ground before the ark of Yahweh! The head of Dagon and the palms of his two hands were cut off, lying at the threshold; only [the body] of Dagon was left.

5 (Therefore the priests of Dagon and all who come into the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod until this [very] day.)

6 Now the hand of Yahweh was heavy against the Ashdodites and he destroyed them and struck them with tumors, both in Ashdod and its territories.

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1 Samuel 5:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

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, 1Sa 5:1-5, that the hand of the Lord was upon the men of Ashdod, and smote them with emerods, 1Sa 5:6,7 and being carried to Gath, the men of Gath were smitten likewise with the same, 1Sa 5:8,9, and after that the men of Ekron, whither it also was carried, 1Sa 5:10-12.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Footnotes 6

[a]. Or "taken"
[b]. Literally "look"
[c]. Literally "look"
[d]. Hebrew "to"
[e]. The phrase may suggest that only the "fish" part of Dagon was left
[f]. The Masoretic Hebrew text (Kethib) reads "boils"; the reading tradition (Qere) has "tumors"