1 Samuel 5:10 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 5:10
Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people.
to send away · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
ark
אֲר֥וֹן'a.Ron
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
הָאֱלֹהִ֖יםha.'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Ekron
עֶקְר֑וֹןek.Ron
H6138
Ekron · proper noun, a place name
ark
אֲר֤וֹן'a.Ron
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
הָאֱלֹהִים֙ha.'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
came
כְּב֨וֹאke.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Ekron
עֶקְר֔וֹןek.Ron
H6138
Ekron · proper noun, a place name
Ekronites
הָֽעֶקְרֹנִ֜יםha.'ek.ro.Nim
H6139
an Ekronite or inhabitant of Ekron · definite article + noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
out
וַיִּזְעֲק֨וּvai.yiz.'a.Ku
H2199
to shriek (from anguish or danger) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
saying
לֵאמֹ֗רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
about
הֵסַ֤בּוּhe.Sa.bu
H5437
to revolve · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural
ark
אֲרוֹן֙'a.rOn
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהֵ֣י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
slay
לַהֲמִיתֵ֖נִיla.ha.mi.Te.ni
H4191
to die (literally or figuratively) · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix
people
עַמִּֽי'a.Mi
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Amos 1:8 And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and…
Joshua 15:45 Ekron, with her towns and her villages:
Judges 1:18 Also Judah took Gaza with the coast thereof, and Askelon with the coast thereof, and Ekron with the coast thereof.
2 Kings 1:2 And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 5:6–end
The downfall of Dagon (if the people had made a good use of it, and had been brought by it to repent of their idolatries and to humble themselves before the God of Israel and seek his face) might have prevented the vengeance which God here proceeds to take upon them for the indignities done to his ark, and their obstinate adherence to their idol, in defiance of the plainest conviction. Lord, when thy hand is lifted up they will not see, but they shall see, Isa 26:11. And, if they will not see the glory, they shall feel the weight, of God's hand, for so the Philistines did. The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them (Sa1 5:6), and he not only convinced them of their folly, but severely chastise…
the ark of God shall not abide with us--It was removed successively to several of the large towns of the country, but the same pestilence broke out in every place and raged so fiercely and fatally that the authorities were forced to send the ark back into the land of Israel [Sa1 5:8-10].
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 5:9
The hand of the Lord was against the city - As it was at Ashdod, so it was at Gath. The Vulgate says, Et computrescebant prominenter extales eorum; which conveys the idea of a bloody flux, dysentery, and ulcerated anus; and it adds, what is not to be found in the Hebrew text, nor many of the versions, except some traces in the Septuagint, Et fecerunt sibi sedes pelliceas, "And they made unto themselves seats of skins;" for the purpose of sitting more easy, on account of the malady already mentioned.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 5:10
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.
The Church Fathers
11. The satraps, as we have said, are understood as the holy preachers. The Ekronites, who are interpreted as "barren," designate the unconvertible Gentiles. These indeed gave the preachers the counsel of releasing the ark, so that if they refused their own salvation from the divine preaching, they would not stand in the way of the faithful who were journeying toward the eternal homeland with the sacraments of faith. For the place of the ark, that is, of the divine sacraments, is recognized to be there where whatever is now said about almighty God through the mystery of the Scriptures is afterward revealed to us in open knowledge. For he knew the proper place of the ark who said: "We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know, just as I also have been known" (1 Cor. 13:12). The counsel of the satraps, therefore, was to allow the ark of God to return to its own place: so that, namely, those who bore no fruit of faith from the preaching of the word would at least release it to those who would prepare for themselves from it a fruit in eternity. Rightly, therefore, those who accept the counsel of sending back the ark are called Ekronites. For the Ekronites are interpreted as "barren." Because indeed from the truth of the faith they had heard, they had produced no fruit of belief or of good work, they were barren. Therefore the princes gave the counsel of removing the ark, but from barren ones—so that the seed of the word of God, which could not germinate in the worst soil, might be preserved for the best soil, which from this labor of winter would bring forth a hundredfold fruit of summer in everlasting life. And they immediately show the reason for releasing the ark, when the preachers add: (Verse 11) "Lest it kill us together with our people." 12. The Ekronites cried out: They have sent the ark of God to us, to kill us and our people. The satraps give counsel, saying: Send away the ark of the God of Israel, that it may not kill us with our people. Who is the people about whom the satraps, that is, the princes, say: that it may not kill us with our people? Who is the people, if not the Christian people? The princes therefore say, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, that it may return to its place. As if to say this: What you fear dying from, do not forbid us from exercising for the merit of…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ekron — Firm-rooted, the most northerly of the five towns belonging to the lords of the Philistines, about 11 miles north of Gath. It was assigned to Judah (Josh. 13:3), and afterwards to Dan (19:43), but…
Ark Of The Covenant · Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued — Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued
Ekron · The Ark of God taken to — The Ark of God taken to
Philistines · Plagued for retaining the ark — Plagued for retaining the ark
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 5:10–end
They therefore sent the ark of God to Ekron, i.e., Akir, the north-western city of the Philistines (see at Jos 13:3). But the Ekronites, who had been informed of what had taken place in Ashdod and Gath, cried out, when the ark came into their city, "They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to me, to slay me and my people" (these words are to be regarded as spoken by the whole town); and they said to all the princes of the Philistines whom they had called together, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, that it may return to its place, and not slay me and my people. For deadly alarm (מות מהוּמת, confusion of death, i.e., alarm produced by many sudden deaths) ruled in the whole city; v…
Ekron, another of the five major Philistine cities (see 6:17), was just five miles north of Gath.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 5:9
And they were afflicted internally.וַיִשָֹּתְרוּ is identical with וַיִסָּתְרוּ for it is listed in the Masora among those words written with a 'שֹ' and explained as though it were written with a 'ס' meaning "there was a plague in the hidden parts of the body."2Or it may mean that the plague occurred at night when it was dark and they were unable to see the שְׁרָצִים, i.e., the plague was hidden from them.—Da’as Sofrim
