1 Samuel 5--The Philistines and the Ark

1 Samuel 5
English Standard Version

The Philistines and the Ark
5 When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. 3 And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. 5 This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

​6 The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. 7 And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.” 8 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. 9 But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. 10 So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people.” 11 They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there. 12 The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

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It was typical practice for the pagans like the Philistines to take a captured idol and put it in the temple of their god (in this case Dago, the god with the head of a fish and the body of a man) so that they could show that their god was more powerful than the god they had captured.  They believed that the Ark of the Covenant was "the LORD" that the Israelites worshiped and that He was simply an idol like their idols and so they took the Ark of the Covenant and put it in the temple of Dagon that was in Ashdod, though, to their surprise, the idol of Dagon fell face down as if it were bowing in worship before the presence of the LORD.  They put the idol back in its place, but the next morning it had again fallen face down in front of the Ark of the Covenant.  So the priests of the temple of Dagon became afraid of walking in front of the idol of Dagon thinking that it might fall on them and crush them.

Since the Philistines did not understand this sign that the LORD was superior to Dagon and that even Dagon had to bow down and worship Him, then the LORD brought all kinds of plagues upon the people of that city.  The people knew that none of this happened before the Ark of the Covenant, which they call the Ark of the LORD, came to them and so they knew that they needed to move it to some other place so that the plagues would stop (though they were not concerned about the plagues affecting other Philistines where they would move the Ark to).

So, they moved the Ark to the city of Gath in the region of Gaza.  Again, the hand of the LORD was against the people of that city so that there was great panic because all the men of the city, both young and old, had tumors break out on them.  So, Gath decided to take a hint from the people of Ashdod and they sent the Ark onto the city of Ekron, but the residents of Ekron already head about what happened in Ashdod and Gath and said, "They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people."

The lords of the Philistines were then called and were urged to take the Ark back to the Israelites so that it would stop killing the Philistines.  For the hand of the LORD was very heavy on the city and those who did not die were also struck by tumors and there was a cry of fear (and probably anguish) that the LORD heard in heaven.  So it is that we will see the Ark returned to Israel in Chapter 6 (what we'll look at next time).