1 Samuël 5:12

12 En de mensen, die niet stierven, werden geslagen met spenen, zodat het geschrei der stad opklom naar den hemel.

1 Samuël 5:12 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 5:12

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 Herodotus ^F2, 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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F2 Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 105.

1 Samuël 5:12 In-Context

10 Toen zonden zij de ark Gods naar Ekron; maar het geschiedde, als de ark Gods te Ekron kwam, zo riepen die van Ekron, zeggende: Zij hebben de ark des Gods van Israel tot mij rondom gebracht, om mij en mijn volk te doden.

11 En zij zonden heen, en vergaderden al de vorsten der Filistijnen, en zeiden: Zendt de ark des Gods van Israel heen, dat zij wederkere tot haar plaats, opdat zij mij en mijn volk niet dode; want er was een dodelijke kwelling in de ganse stad, en de hand Gods was er zeer zwaar.

12 En de mensen, die niet stierven, werden geslagen met spenen, zodat het geschrei der stad opklom naar den hemel.