The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Samuel — Section 107

"wimming in t.he sea, and is snnoundcd hy a so hnmilinting a defeat. For -the gods •• multitude of marine creatures. Doubtless the heathen "~re jealous, fickle, an,! ,·cry this tignre represents Dagon, "·ho, ncvcrt.hc- ill-tempered ir any slight was put upon them. less, is not to be regarded as a sen-god, like After all, perhaps they thought, he had done Neptune; but as the nsh is the product of his best, and though worsted in the personal wate·, he is the symbol of nature's rcpro- conflict, he had managed so cleverly that <luct.ive encrg:y. Together with Dagon a they ha,! gained in fair tight a grent victory. frmalc deity m1s commonly worshipped, Yer. 5. - Henceforward, therefore, his called Atcrs:atis, half woman and half fish, priests and other worshippe,·s carefully r,,b- "·hose temple is mentioned in 2 Mace. xii. stained from treading on the door-sill, where '.?6. In the margin there she is explained as his nobler members l,ad 1a;n, unto this da.y. licing Venus; but the ideas have only this in Apparently the Books of Samuel were writ- <'ommon-that Venus nlso, as rising out of ten some time after the events recorded in the sea,.symboliscs life as springing out of them took place, and we have remarkable water. As Dagon had a temple also at Gaza evidence of the permanence of the custom in (Judges xn. 23), and at the other cities of Zeph. i. 9, where the Philistines are des~ribed Philistia (Jerome on Isa. xlvi. l ), he was as "those that leap on," or more correctly -evidently the chief deity of the nation, and ovei·, "the threshold." The custom, so curi- the solemn depositing of the ark in his ous in itself and so long continued, bears temple, and by Dagon, - literally, "at his strong testimony to the historical tmth of s1,le, "-was intencled as a public demonstra- the narrative. tion that the Goel of the Israelites was Ver. 6.-llut the ha.nd of Jehovah wa.s inferior to, and had been vanquished by, the hee.vy upon them of Ashdod. I. e. his 1rntionnl deity of the Philistines. power and might were exercised in smiting Vers. 3, 4.-0n the morrow, behold, De.gon them with severe plagues. A question here -we.s fa.lien upon his fa.ce to the ea.rth before the arises whether, as the Septuagint affirms, ·ark of J ehova.h. I. e. he was in the attitude besides the scourge of emerods, their land .of adoration, anJ instead of triumphing over was desolated by swarms of field-mice. It is .J cho,ah, be was prostrate, as if compelled certain that they sent as votive offerings to worship. Dut his priests perhaps thought golden images of "the mice that mar the that it ~rns an accident, aud so they set the land " (eh. vi. 5) ; but the translators of the image in its place again. They also, we may Septuagint too often attempt to make all 1Jc sure, took due precaution against any one things easy by unauthorised additions, sug- -entering his temple hy stealth ; but when gested by the context; and so probably here it -early on the second morning they came with was the wish to explain why mice were sent .anxious minds to s~e whether any new pro- which made them add, "and mice were pro- <l.igy had happened, they found their god duced in the lam!." Really the mouse was not only prostrate, as before, but mutilated, a symbol of pestil;nce ~Herod., ~i. 141), and .and his hee.d e.nd both the pa.I.ms of his appears as such m hieroglyphics; and by ha.nds were cut off'-not broken off by the sending golden mice .with golden emerods fall of the image from its IJlace, but severed the lords of the Philistines expressed very with deliberate care, and placed contemptu- clearly that the emerods had been epidemic. ously upon the threshold, i. e. upon the This word, more con-ectly spelt hremor- door-sill, the place where all must tread. rhoids, has this in its favour, that the noun Only Dagon was left to him. We cannot in used here, ophalim, is never read in th~ syna- English render the full contemptuousness of gogue. Wherever the word occurs the reader this phrase, because Dagon is to us a mere was instructed to say tehoi·im, the vowels of pl'Oper name, with no significance. In the which are actually attached to the consonants original it co11Yeys the idea that the head, of ophalim in the text of our Hebrew Bibles. the emblem of reason, and the human hands, In Dent. xxviii. 27 tehorim is mentioned as the em hlems of iutellcctual actiYity, were uo one of the loathsome skin disrusrs of Egypt, real parts of Dagon, but falsely assumed by and though rendered "emerods" in the l,im ; and, deprived of them, he lay there in A. V., is possibly, as translated by Aquila, l1is trne ugliness, a mere misshapen fish; for "an eating ulcer." Ophalim need only mean da:1, as we haYe seen, means a fish, and tumours, swellings, its original signification D,,gou is here a diminutive of contempt. In being "a hill" (2 Chron. xxvii. 3) ; yet e.s spite of his discomfiture the Philistines were the word was not thought fit for public trne to their allegiance to their god, becatL~e, reading in the synagogue, we may feel sure ]. licvin;( as t!icy did in "gocls many," he that it means some such tumours as the \\'.IS still tlieir owu national deity, even A. V. describes. tl, ougli lie ha<! l,cc11 prornd iuferior to the God Ver. 7.-His hand is sore upon us. The of Israel, a]l(I woulJ r,rol.,ably be rendered epidemic was evidently very painful, and, more particular and exacting as regards the Ill! appears from ver. 11, fatal in numerous homu.1e duet< 1,;~, from his own subjeds by instances. Connecting this outbreak with 1::H, Y. 1-12.] THJ<~ FlRST HOOK OF SA:\IL'l~L. 103