Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The ark captured by the Philistines and placed in the temple of Dagon, prostrates and mutilates Dagon. Then God, at verse 6, afflicts the people of Ashdod with shameful diseases and with mice; then, at verse 9, those of Gath, and at verse 10, the Ekronites: therefore they decide that the ark must be sent back to Israel.
Vulgate Text: 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 5:1-12
1. And the Philistines took the ark of God and carried it from the stone of help to Ashdod. 2. And the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, and set it beside Dagon. 3. And when the Ashdodites arose early the next day, behold, Dagon was lying prostrate on the ground before the ark of the Lord; and they took Dagon and restored him to his place. 4. And again the next day, rising early in the morning, they found Dagon lying on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands had been cut off upon the threshold. 5. Moreover only the trunk of Dagon remained in its place. For this reason the priests of Dagon, and all who enter his temple, do not tread upon the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, to this day. 6. And the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Ashdodites, and He demolished them; and He struck Ashdod and its borders in the more secret part of the buttocks. And the villages and fields in the midst of that region swarmed, and mice were born, and there was a great confusion of death in the city. 7. And the men of Ashdod, seeing this kind of plague, said: The ark of the God of Israel shall not remain with us; for His hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god. 8. And they sent and gathered all the satraps of the Philistines to them, and said: What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And the men of Gath answered: Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried around. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel around. 9. And as they carried it around, the hand of the Lord came upon each city with an exceedingly great slaughter; and He struck the men of each city, from the least to the greatest, and their protruding entrails rotted. And the men of Gath took counsel and made themselves leather seats. 10. Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And when the ark of God had come to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, saying: They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people. 11. And so they sent and gathered all the satraps of the Philistines, who said: Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, and not kill us with our people. 12. For there was a fear of death in each city, and the hand of God was very heavy, and the men who had not died were struck in the more secret part of the buttocks, and the wailing of each city ascended to heaven.
Verse 2: The Ark Set Beside Dagon
2. They set it beside Dagon -- their idol, or their god, both to honor him with this gift, says St. Augustine, City of God Book 17, chapter 4; and to present to him as the author of their victory these most noble spoils, says Josephus, Book 6, chapter 1. Theodoret and Procopius explain, as if to say: Behold, our Dagon has conquered the God of the Hebrews and made us their conquerors. Therefore let the ark of God be placed at the feet of Dagon.
One asks, who and what was Dagon? I answer that he was the principal god of the Philistines. First, Giraldus thinks Dagon was Jupiter of the Plough, whom the Phoenicians worshipped as the inventor of grain and the plow, and hence was called Dagon from 'dagan,' that is, 'grain.' Others commonly derive Dagon from 'daga,' that is, 'fish,' because this idol had the form of a fish: for since the Philistines were coastal dwellers, they engaged in fishing, and therefore they fabricated and worshipped Dagon as the patron of fish and fishing. Moreover, this idol was indeed in the form of a fish, but mixed with a human. It was therefore composed of man and fish, so that the head and hands were those of a man, while the remaining parts from the navel downward terminated in a fish's tail.
Moreover, Josephus and others assert that Dagon is Derceto (whom others call Atargatis), or the Syrian goddess, who is believed by the Syrians to have been changed into a fish, and therefore is worshipped in the form of a fish. Tropologically, 'Philistim' in Hebrew means the same as 'sprinkled' or 'those who sprinkle,' or 'those who lay ruin': these are animal, earthly, and carnal men who worship Dagon, that is, Venus and the belly, of whom the Apostle says, Philippians 3: 'Whose god is their belly.'
Verse 3: Dagon Falls Before the Ark
3. Behold, Dagon was lying prostrate on the ground before the ark of the Lord -- as if cast down by it, subject to it, and adoring it. Note: God here avenges with severe punishment the injury done to the ark, that is, to Himself seated upon the ark, and with a threefold punishment. First, against Dagon; second, against the Philistines; third, against the region itself, by sending mice.
Verse 4: Dagon Mutilated
4. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. -- By the first blow in verse 3, Dagon had merely been thrown from his seat and throne to the ground: but when the Philistines restored him to his throne, he was punished even more severely, namely losing his head and hands, so that he lay as a mere trunk on the pavement.
Verse 5: The Threshold Custom
5. For this reason the priests of Dagon do not tread on the threshold. -- Tropologically, St. Gregory says: 'The priests of Dagon remain to this day, because whoever sacrifices to the ancient enemy through unclean desires still exists. They indeed refuse to tread on the threshold of the temple, because they neither resist unclean suggestions nor evil works.'
Verse 6: The Plague of Ashdod
6. And He demolished them. -- He struck Ashdod in the more secret part of their buttocks. -- This was a disease of the bowels and anus, so that their intestines rotted and protruded outward through the anus. Josephus, and following him Theodoret, Procopius, Dionysius, and Lyranus call this disease dysentery.
And mice were born. -- This was the third plague of mice, which, as Josephus says, devoured gardens, fields, vineyards, and all crops, grains, and fruits, just as the plague of frogs did in Egypt, Exodus 8.
Moreover, this disease raged through all the cities, villages, and towns of the Philistines, as is clear from verse 6, and spared no dignity, age, or sex, nor could it be cured by any remedy (verse 9), and it lasted for seven months (chapter 6, verse 1).
Symbolically, Mendoza says: 'The Philistines are struck in their posterior parts, to signify that they are to be struck in all their posterity, that is, not only in this life but also in the future; not only in their own bodies, but also in their children and grandchildren.'
Verse 8: The Satraps' Counsel
8. All the satraps -- that is, the prefects and princes: 'Satraps,' says St. Thomas, On the Government of Princes Book 3, chapter 22, 'are called as it were "sufficiently prepared" for their office and for war,' or as it were 'sufficiently seizing,' that is, plundering their subjects: this is an ingenious allusion and play of wit. For it is established that 'satraps' is a Persian word, Esther 3:12; Daniel 3:2. Hence also Herodotus, Book 3, says that Darius the king of Persia divided Babylon into twenty-eight satrapies or prefectures.
Let the ark be carried around. -- This advice was given by the men of Gath, because they thought this disaster befell the Ashdodites not from the ark, but from the nature of the place, for example from infected and pestilential air, or from a malign influence of the stars. This advice of the men of Gath was wicked and faithless, which therefore God turned back against them and their destruction.
Nazianzen says excellently, Oration 1 On His Flight, near the end: 'God alone,' he says, 'of all things can neither be escaped by flight nor overcome; when He wishes to seize someone and bring them under His hand and power, He outruns the swift, deceives the prudent, overthrows the strong, brings down the lofty, tames the bold, crushes power.'
Verse 9: The Plague at Gath
9. The hand of the Lord -- that is, the plague and striking of God. And their protruding entrails rotted -- that is, their intestines and putrid viscera flowed out through the anus, as happened to Arius the heresiarch. And they made themselves leather seats. -- This disease required soft seats: and such are leather ones. Moreover Lyranus, Dionysius, Cajetan, Mendoza, and others take 'seats' here in the proper sense; for they say they made them of leather so that they might sit more softly.
Moreover this punishment was fitting for the Philistines' guilt; for because they had restored their Dagon, cast down from the ark, his throne and seat, back to it, they were justly punished with disease in that member on which they were accustomed to sit, so that they could not sit except on leather seats, because they had denied the throne of divinity to the true God and assigned it to their Dagon.
Antiochus was punished with a similar pain in the bowels for plundering the vessels of the temple, 2 Maccabees chapter 9. Rupert and the Gloss give a third reason, namely that the Philistines were pederasts and sodomites, and therefore were punished in the very member by which they had sinned.
Another reason is given by the Author of the Wonders of Sacred Scripture, Book 2, chapter 7: 'In order that,' he says, 'those who dragged the interior things of the Lord's tabernacle, that is, the ark, beyond its boundaries, should be afflicted with the foul plague of their own interior parts protruding outward.'
Moreover, our Sanchez fittingly understands 'seats' by metonymy as garments, for warming those badly affected parts and for containing the flowing viscera and the plasters applied to them. For the Palestinians did not use breeches. 'Seats' therefore, he says, is taken for 'garments,' that is, coverings for the buttocks, just as 'foot' is taken for 'shoe,' and 'body' for 'clothing of the body.'
Verse 12: The Heavy Hand of God
12. The hand of God was very heavy. -- 'Hand,' that is, vengeance, striking, slaying. Philo, in his Biblical Antiquities, assigns the number of those slain in detail: 'Of women with child, seventy-five thousand. Of children still infants and nurslings, sixty-five thousand. Of women who were nursing and giving milk, fifty-five thousand. Of men already adults, twenty-five thousand. Of all collected together, two hundred and twenty thousand.' But this is not really Philo, but Pseudo-Philo.
Note: Samuel succeeded Eli in the leadership when he died; in the High Priesthood, not Phinehas or Ophni, since they had already been killed, nor Ichabod since he was an infant; but Ahitub, Eli's grandson through his son, as will be clear from chapter 14, verse 3. So Mendoza.