1 Samuel 5:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 5:9
And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.
great (in any sense) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
emerods
טְחֹרִֽיםo.fa.lim
H2914
a boil or ulcer (from the inflammation) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
parts
וַיִּשָּׂתְר֥וּvai.yi.sa.te.Ru
H8368
to break out (as an eruption) · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
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
1 Samuel 5:6 But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts there…
Deuteronomy 2:15 For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed.
1 Samuel 7:13 So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all th…
1 Samuel 12:15 But if ye will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall the hand of the LORD be against you…
Psalms 78:66 And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he put them to a perpetual reproach.
1 Samuel 5:11 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again t…
1 Samuel 6:4-5 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice,…
1 Samuel 6:11 And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.
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 5:9
And it was so, that after they had carried it about,.... And at last placed it in the city of Gath:
the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: greater than that at Ashdod, more persons were destroyed; the distemper sent among them was more epidemic and mortal:
and he smote the men of the city, both small and great; high and low, persons of every class, rank, and station, young and old, men, women, and children:
and they had emerods in their secret parts; and so had the men of Ashdod; and the design of this expression is, not to point at the place where they were, which it is well known they are always in those parts, but the different nature of them; the emer…
The Church Fathers
However, while they were carrying it around, the hand of the Lord came down, etc. Those who receive faith transiently and without fixed intention not only gain no advantage by believing, but also wretchedly deserve eternal punishment for the price of salvation.
And their prominent entrails spoiled. And the meditation of their inner heart fell back into blind and dirty matters of the present life, full of foul dung and blood of vices, appearing before all; a type of affliction to which the madness of the heretics can be compared, as shown even by the death of Arius; who, with his bowels pouring out through his backside, miserably found an end to his heretical teaching and the beginning of punishments worthy of heretics.
9. For the ark is carried around when the mysteries of the faith are preached openly and without fear. And because in the beginnings of the faith countless people were converted, a very great slaughter is reported to have been made throughout each of the cities. Likewise, because not only the simple but also the wise were converted, the same slaughter is declared to have been made from the least even to the greatest. But through that same striking, the intestines are reported to rot away. For the intestines to rot is for the channels of sin to utterly perish from the outpouring of their accustomed stench. For he is well struck whose protruding intestines rot away, because indeed there are some who, after the cleanness of conversion, are entangled again in the former filth of wickedness. Their protruding intestines certainly do not rot away, because they are bent back to the accustomed flow of sins through wicked works. He indeed rebukes those who are ill-healed from an imperfect striking, who intimates that they have fallen back to their former stenches: "The dog returned to its vomit, and the washed sow to wallowing in the mire" (Prov. 26:11; 2 Pet. 2:22). For he was striking, as it were, so that the intestines might rot away, he who, thrusting in the sword of the word, said: "Let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires" (Rom. 6:12). 10. Moreover, by the fact that the Azotites say, "Let the ark not remain among us," the perversity of those from the same Gentiles who both heard the word of faith and, being by no means predestined to eternal life, refused to believe, can be signified. For the satraps to lead the ark of God around was for the holy preachers to withdraw from them the word of truth and to reveal the mysteries of faith to those who were worthy. The ark was therefore led around, because the sacraments of our faith were removed from the knowledge of some and revealed to others. And so, as it was led around, an exceedingly great slaughter is reported to have occurred in each city, because wherever they brought the word of faith, the grace of conversion was multiplied. And because wherever they preached, among those who believed there were some who were not predestined to eternal life, there follows: (Verses 10, 11.) They sent the ark of God to Ekron. And when the ark of God had come to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, saying:…
Dictionary and topics
Emerods — (28:27; 1 Samuel 5:6,9,12; 6:4,5,11) Probably hemorrhiodal tumors, or bleeding piles, are intended. These are very common in Syria at present, Oriental habits of want of exercise and improper food,…
Gath — A wine-vat, one of the five royal cities of the Philistines (Josh. 13:3) on which the ark brought calamity (1 Sam. 5:8, 9; 6:17). It was famous also as being the birthplace or residence of Goliath (1…
Ark Of The Covenant · Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued — Miracles connected with: Philistines plagued
Boil · Of the Philistines (R. V., tumors) — Of the Philistines (R. V., tumors)
Philistines · Plagued for retaining the ark — Plagued for retaining the ark
Tumor · A morbid swelling (R. V.) — A morbid swelling (R. V.)
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).
But when the ark was brought to Gath, the hand of Jehovah came upon that city also with very great alarm. גּדולה מהוּמה is subordinated to the main sentence either adverbially or in the accusative. Jehovah smote the people of the city, small and great, so that boils broke out upon their hinder parts.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on 1 Samuel 5:9
God often used great panic to incapacitate and overwhelm Israel’s enemies (14:15, 20; Deut 7:23; Ezek 22:5; Amos 3:9).
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
