1 Samuel 5:4 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 5:4
And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.
the morrow or (adverbially) tomorrow · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
morning
בַבֹּקֶר֮va.bo.Ker
H1242
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Dagon
דָג֗וֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
fallen
נֹפֵ֤לno.Fel
H5307
to fall · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
face
לְפָנָיו֙le.fa.Nav
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
ground
אַ֔רְצָה'Ar.tzah
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute + directional suffix
before
לִפְנֵ֖יlif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
ark
אֲר֣וֹן'a.Ron
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
head
וְרֹ֨אשׁve.Rosh
H7218
the head (as most easily shaken) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
Dagon
דָּג֜וֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
both
וּשְׁתֵּ֣יu.she.Tei
H8147
two · conjunction + noun, common feminine dual construct
palms
כַּפּ֣וֹתka.Pot
H3709
the hollow hand or palm (so of the paw of an animal · noun, common feminine plural construct
hands
יָדָ֗יוya.Dav
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
off
כְּרֻתוֹת֙ke.ru.tOt
H3772
to cut (off · verb, qal passive participle, feminine plural absolute
threshold
הַמִּפְתָּ֔ןha.mif.Tan
H4670
a stretcher · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Dagon
דָּג֖וֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
left
נִשְׁאַ֥רnish.'Ar
H7604
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
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
Micah 1:7 And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols ther…
Jeremiah 10:11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under th…
Jeremiah 50:2 Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Meroda…
Isaiah 27:9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of th…
Ezekiel 6:4-6 And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
Daniel 11:8 And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and he shall…
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…
DAGON FALLS DOWN. (Sa1 5:3-5)
they of Ashdod arose early--They were filled with consternation when they found the object of their stupid veneration prostrate before the symbol of the divine presence. Though set up, it fell again, and lay in a state of complete mutilation; its head and arms, severed from the trunk, were lying in distant and separate places, as if violently cast off, and only the fishy part remained. The degradation of their idol, though concealed by the priests on the former occasion, was now more manifest and infamous. It lay in the attitude of a vanquished enemy and a suppliant, and this picture of humiliation significantly declared the superiority of the God of Israel.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 5:4
Only the stump of Dagon was left - Literally, Only דגן dagon (i.e., the little fish) was left. It has already been remarked that Dagon had the head, arms and hands of a man or woman, and that the rest of the idol was in the form of a fish, to which Horace is supposed to make allusion in the following words: -
Desinat in piscem mulisr formosa superne
"The upper part resembling a beautiful woman; the lower, a fish."
All that was human in his form was broken off from what resembled a fish. Here was a proof that the affair was not accidental; and these proofs of God's power and authority prepared the way for his judgments.
John Gill
The Church Fathers
And again rising early in the morning the next day, etc. As the light of heavenly signs gradually increased, the face of idolatry was confused before the faithful of Christ, and they confessed as earthly and perishable all that they had hitherto done or believed.
Moreover, the trunk of Dagon alone, etc. Moreover, the people, having cast off and eliminated the profession of idolatry, and the operations of the demonic, among those who had advanced in faith, as if near the ark of God, preferred to remain humble and submissive, rather than to be cast out with the devil, that is, to be anathematized by the members of the Church. And the state of Dagon is not asserted to have been restored as before, because after many struggles of the Church, a cessation had occurred, from the defense of false gods, and victory was given to the one true God, Christ.
But the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands, etc. The head of all sin, the pride of the devil, and the work of idolatry; which, as if with two palms, was conducted by the profession of impiety, the ceremonies of praises and sacrifices, already separated from the related body, that is, the crowds of seducers adhering to it, was now, and about to be cast out, prepared by the growing triumph of Christ; who showed, as it were, the head and hands of the truncated Dagon lying on the threshold, when he said: "Now is the judgment of the world, now the prince of this world shall be cast out" (John 12).
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
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…
Fish — Called dag by the Hebrews, a word denoting great fecundity (Gen. 9:2; Num. 11:22; Jonah 2:1, 10). No fish is mentioned by name either in the Old or in the New Testament. Fish abounded in the…
Philistines — (Gen. 10:14, R.V.; but in A.V., “Philistim”), a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the…
Threshold — (1.) Heb. miphtan, probably a projecting beam at a higher point than the threshold proper (1 Sam. 5:4, 5; Ezek. 9:3; 10:4, 18; 46:2; 47:1); also rendered “door” and “door-post.” (2.) ‘Asuppim, pl.…
Ark Of The Covenant · Miracles connected with: Fall of Dagon — Miracles connected with: Fall of Dagon
Philistines · Put the ark into Dagon’s house — Put the ark into Dagon’s house
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).
on 1 Samuel 5:4
And when they arose early on the morrow morning,.... For the same purpose as before; unless they had any curiosity to indulge, to see whether the ark and Dagon agreed better together, if they had any suspicion that the former mischance was to be attributed to some variance and disagreement between them:
behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord: again, and in a worse condition than before:
and the head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands, were cut off upon the threshold; of the temple, upon which he fell with such force, that the threshold cut off his head, and both his hands; which signified he had neither wisdom to contrive for his own safety,…
But they were obliged to give up this notion when they found the god lying on his face upon the ground again the next morning in front of the ark of Jehovah, and in fact broken to pieces, so that Dagon's head and the two hollow hands of his arms lay severed upon the threshold, and nothing was left but the trunk of the fish (דּגון). The word Dagon, in this last clause, is used in an appellative sense, viz., the fishy part, or fish's shape, from דּג, a fish. המּפתּן is no doubt the threshold of the door of the recess in which the image was set up. We cannot infer from this, however, as Thenius has done, that with the small dimensions of the recesses in the ancient temples, if the image fell fo…
