1 Samuel 5:7 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 5:7
And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.
a man in general (singly or collectively) · noun, common masculine plural construct
Ashdod
אַשְׁדּ֖וֹד'ash.Dod
H795
Ashdod · proper noun, a place name
saw
וַיִּרְא֥וּvai.yir.'U
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
said
וְאָמְר֗וּve.'a.me.Ru
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
ark
אֲר֨וֹן'a.Ron
H727
a box · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהֵ֤י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵל֙Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
abide
יֵשֵׁ֞בye.Shev
H3427
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
hand
יָדוֹ֙ya.Do
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
sore
קָשְׁתָ֤הka.she.Tah
H7185
properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Dagon
דָּג֥וֹןda.Gon
H1712
Dagon · proper noun, a title
god
אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ'e.lo.Hei.nu
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural 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
Exodus 12:33 And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.
1 Chronicles 15:13 For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
Jeremiah 48:7 For because thou hast trusted in thy works and in thy treasures, thou shalt also be taken: and Chemosh shall go forth into captivity with hi…
Exodus 8:8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will…
Exodus 8:28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intre…
Exodus 9:28 Intreat the LORD (for it is enough) that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer.
Exodus 10:7 And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: kn…
1 Samuel 4:8 Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in…
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 5:7
His hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god - Here the end was completely answered: they now saw that they had not prevailed against Israel, on account of their god being more powerful than Jehovah; and they now feel how easily this God can confound and destroy their whole nation.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 5:7
And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so,.... That many of their inhabitants were taken away by death, and others afflicted with a painful disease; all which they imputed to the ark being among them:
they said, the ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us; like the Gergesenes, who besought Christ to depart their coasts, having more regard for their swine than for him:
for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon, our god, not the hand of the ark, unless they took it for a god, but the hand of the God of Israel; in this they were right, and seem to have understood the case better than the other lords they after consulted; his hand was upon Dagon, as appeared his fall before the…
The Church Fathers
7. For when they saw temples destroyed, sacrifices ceasing, wives separated from husbands and husbands from wives, sons separated from parents and fathers from sons, what else could they think but that the hand of the Lord was heavy both upon them and upon their superstition? But what was done next follows: (Verse 8.) And they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and the Gittites answered: Let the ark of God be carried around.
Seeing the men of Ashdod had such a plague, etc. Upon seeing the idol worshippers experience the power of Christ against their gods, they refuse to accept his faith, lest on account of this they might be compelled to renounce their whole host of gods. Similarly, false Christians, seeing that due to faith in Christ the sins they love are forbidden to them, detest the religion of faith as much as they can, lest on this occasion they be commanded to extinguish the desires which they serve in place of God. The men of Ashdod in every respect, that is, worthy of the name of rift, dissolution, and burning, refuse to know the sacred Scriptures so that having known them, they would have to act according to what they have learned; and because of the Lord's sentence, which states that those who are ignorant of his will shall receive fewer stripes, they refuse to know what they ought to do: not understanding that there is a great difference between being simply ignorant and refusing to know what ought to be learned. And so, feeling this as harsh to their own wills, they impudently repel the ark of heavenly knowledge from themselves.
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
Ark — Noah’s ark, a building of gopher-wood, and covered with pitch, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high (Gen. 6:14-16); an oblong floating house of three stories, with a door in the side…
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…
Haemorrhoids — Or Emerods, bleeding piles known to the ancient Romans as mariscae, but more probably malignant boils of an infectious and fatal character. With this loathsome and infectious disease the men of…
Ark Of The Covenant · Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued — Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued
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).
"When the Ashdodites saw that it was so," they were unwilling to keep the ark of the God of Israel any longer, because the hand of Jehovah lay heavy upon them and their god Dagon; whereupon the princes of the Philistines (סרני, as in Jos 13:3, etc.) assembled together, and came to the resolution to "let the ark of the God of Israel turn (i.e., be taken) to Gath" (Sa1 5:8). The princes of the Philistines probably imagined that the calamity which the Ashdodites attributed to the ark of God, either did not proceed from the ark, i.e., from the God of Israel, or if actually connected with the presence of the ark, simply arose from the fact that the city itself was hateful to the God of the Israel…
tumors: The Hebrew term can mean simply “swellings.” A possible alternative translation is “hemorrhoids.” They were possibly the fatal buboes of bubonic plague, which attack the lower body, especially the rectal area. Rats are known carriers of the plague.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 5:6
And He devastated them. An expression [שְׁמָמָה] meaning desolation.
With hemorrhoids. The mesentery of the large intestine, a plague of the rectum. Mice would enter their recta, disembowel them, and crawl out.
