a Pelishtite or inhabitant of Pelesheth · noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
took
וַיִּקְח֤וּvai.yik.Chu
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
ark
אֲר֣וֹן'a.Ron
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
הָאֱלֹהִ֔יםha.'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
brought
וַיָּבִ֥יאוּvai.ya.Vi.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
house
בֵּ֣יתbeit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
Dagon
דָּג֑וֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
set
וַיַּצִּ֥יגוּvai.ya.Tzi.gu
H3322
to place permanently · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
by
אֵ֥צֶל'E.tzel
H681
a side · noun, common both genders singular construct
Dagon
דָּגֽוֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
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
Judges 16:23 Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said,…
1 Chronicles 10:10 And they put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon.
Daniel 5:2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the…
Daniel 5:23 But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords,…
Habakkuk 1:11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.
Habakkuk 1:16 Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 5:1-5
Here is, I. The Philistines' triumph over the ark, which they were the more pleased, the more proud, to be now masters of, because before the battle they were possessed with a great fear of it, Sa1 4:7. When they had it in their hands God restrained them, that they did not offer any violence to it, did not break it to pieces, as the Israelites were ordered to do by the idols of the heathen, but showed some respect to it, and carefully carried it to a place of safety. Whether their curiosity led them to open it, and to read what was written with the finger of God on the two tables of stone that were in it, we are not told; perhaps they looked no further than the golden outside and the cherubi…
the house of Dagon--Stately temples were erected in honor of this idol, which was the principal deity of the Philistines, but whose worship extended over all Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and Chaldea; its name being found among the Assyrian gods on the cuneiform inscriptions [RAWLINSON]. It was represented under a monstrous combination of a human head, breast, and arms, joined to the belly and tail of a fish. The captured ark was placed in the temple of Dagon, right before this image of the idol.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 5:2
The house of Dagon - On this idol, which was supposed to be partly in a human form, and partly in that of a fish, see the note on Jdg 16:23. Some think that this idol was the same with Dirceto, Attergatis, the Venus of Askelon, and the Moon. - See Calmet's Dissertation on the gods of the Philistines.
The motive which induced the Philistines to set up the ark in the temple of Dagon, may be easily ascertained. It was customary, in all nations, to dedicate the spoils taken from an enemy to their gods:
1. As a gratitude-offering for the help which they supposed them to have furnished; and,
2. As a proof that their gods, i.e., the gods of the conquerors, were more powerful than those of the conqu…
And they brought it into the temple of Dagon. And they brought faith into the world, which was set in wickedness, and concerning which the Lord said: When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, all his possessions are in peace; but if one stronger than he assaults him and overcomes him, he will take away all his armor in which he trusted, and divide his spoils (1 John 5; Luke 11). Dagon was strong when he guarded the foolish weapons of paganism in his hall. The ark of faith is stronger, which victorious of this took the spoils of impiety, and made them the weapons and spoils of piety.
In short, if you believe the place is holy because the law and the books of prophets are there, then it is time for you to believe that idols and the temples of idols are holy. Once, when the Jews were at war, the people of Ashdod conquered them, took their ark and brought it into their own temple. Did the fact that it contained the ark make their temple a holy place? By no means! It continued to be profane and unclean, as the events immediately proved. For God wanted to teach the enemies of the Jews that the defeat was not due to God's weakness but to the transgressions of those who worshiped him. And so the ark, which had been taken as booty in war, gave proof of its own power in an alien land by twice throwing the idol to the ground so that the idol was broken. The ark was so far from making that temple a holy place that it even openly attacked it.
And now is not the first time, but he has performed these amazing marvels from time immemorial. It is not pertinent to enumerate them all; I shall mention what seems to resemble these events most closely. Once when the Jews waged war in Palestine with certain foreigners and the enemy was victorious and took the ark of God, they dedicated it as the choice part of the spoils to one of their local idols named Dagon; and, as soon as the ark was brought in, the statue fell down and lay on its face. Since they did not comprehend God's mighty power from this fall but set it up and again placed it on its pedestal, when they appeared the next day at dawn they observed that it was no longer simply fallen but also quite broken. The arms, detached from the shoulders, were flung onto the threshold of the temple, with the feet; and the rest of the statue was scattered in another place in pieces.… Therefore the place, which is able to exist for a long time, receives the blow and reminds each succeeding generation that those who do such things are ordained by law to suffer such things even if they do not pay the penalty at once; which is exactly what happened in the case of this temple.
Dictionary and topics
Dagon — Little fish; diminutive from dag = a fish, the fish-god; the national god of the Philistines (Judg. 16:23). This idol had the body of a fish with the head and hands of a man. It was an…
Dagon’s house — (1 Sam. 5:2), or Beth-dagon, as elsewhere rendered (Josh. 15: 41; 19:27), was the sanctuary or temple of Dagon. The Beth-dagon of Josh. 15:41 was one of the cities of the tribe of Judah, in the…
Tower — Watch-towers or fortified posts in frontier or exposed situations are mentioned in Scripture, as the tower of Edar, etc., (Genesis 35:21; Isaiah 21:5,8,11; Micah 4:8) etc.; the tower of Lebanon. (2…
Ark Of The Covenant · Miracles connected with: Fall of Dagon — Miracles connected with: Fall of Dagon
Idolatry · Idols, mentioned in Scripture: Dagon — Idols, mentioned in Scripture: Dagon
Philistines · Character of: Idolatrous — Character of: Idolatrous
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).
John Gill on 1 Samuel 5:2
When the Philistines took the ark of God,.... And had brought it to Ashdod:
they brought it into the house of Dagon; a temple dedicated to that idol, and in which his image stood; of which See Gill on Judges 16:23,
and set it by Dagon; by the side of him, either in honour to the ark, as Abarbinel, designing to give it homage and adoration, as to their own deity; for though the Gentiles did not choose to change their gods, yet they would add the gods of other nations to them; and such the Philistines might take the ark to be: or else, as Procopius Gazaeus, they brought it into their idol's temple, as a trophy of victory, and as a spoil taken from their enemies, and which they dedicated to t…
The Ark in the Land of the Philistines. - Sa1 5:1-6. The Philistines carried the ark from Ebenezer, where they had captured it, into their capital, Ashdod (Esdud; see at Jos 13:3), and placed it there in the temple of Dagon, by the side of the idol Dagon, evidently as a dedicatory offering to this god of theirs, by whose help they imagined that they had obtained the victory over both the Israelites and their God. With regard to the image of Dagon, compounded of man and fish, i.e., of a human body, with head and hands, and a fish's tail, see, in addition to Jdg 16:23, Stark's Gaza, pp. 248ff., 308ff., and Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, pp. 466-7, where there is a bas-relief from Khorsabad,…
Dagon was one of the Philistines’ gods (see Judg 16:23-24). The name could be related to the Hebrew dag (“fish”), an appropriate name for a god of seafaring people. More likely, it reflects the Hebrew dagan (“grain”), suggesting a fertility or agriculture god.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 5:2
Beside Dagon. The idol was made in the form of a fish.1 From the word דָג [=fish]. Some say that from the waist up it had a human form with hands, and from the waist down it looked like a fish.
