1 Samuel 5:1-6

1 After the Philistines captured the Covenant Box, they carried it from Ebenezer to their city of Ashdod,

2 took it into the temple of their god Dagon, and set it up beside his statue.

3 Early the next morning the people of Ashdod saw that the statue of Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground in front of the Lord's Covenant Box. So they lifted it up and put it back in its place.

4 Early the following morning they saw that the statue had again fallen down in front of the Covenant Box. This time its head and both its arms were broken off and were lying in the doorway; only the body was left.

5 (That is why even today the priests of Dagon and all his worshipers in Ashdod step over that place and do not walk on it.)

6 The Lord punished the people of Ashdod severely and terrified them. He punished them and the people in the surrounding territory by causing them to have tumors.

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. tumors: [The association of tumors with an abundance of mice suggests that this was a case of bubonic plague (see 6.5).]