1 Samuel 5:4

_AND WHEN THEY AROSE EARLY ON THE MORROW MORNING, BEHOLD, DAGON WAS FALLEN UPON HIS FACE TO THE GROUND BEFORE THE ARK OF THE LORD; AND THE HEAD OF DAGON AND BOTH THE PALMS OF HIS HANDS WERE CUT OFF UPON THE THRESHOLD; ONLY THE STUMP OF DAGON WAS LEFT TO HIM._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

1-5 See the ark's triumph over Dagon. Thus the kingdom of Satan will certainly fall before the kingdom of Christ, error before truth, profaneness before godliness, and corruption before grace in the hearts of the faithful. When the interests of religion seem to be ready to sink, even then we may be confident that the day of their triumph will come. When Christ, the true Ark of the covenant, really enters the heart of fallen man, which is indeed Satan's temple, all idols will fall, every endeavour to set them up again will be vain, sin will be forsaken, and unrighteous gain restored; the Lord will claim and possess the throne. But pride, self-love, and worldly lusts, though dethroned and crucified, still remain within us, like the stump of Dagon. Let us watch and pray that they may not prevail. Let us seek to have them more entirely destroyed....

Verse 1 Samuel 5:4. _ONLY_ THE STUMP OF _DAGON WAS LEFT_] Literally, Only דגן _dagon_ (i.e., the _little fish_) was left. It has already been remarked that Dagon had the head, arms and hands of a man or woman, and that the rest of the idol was in the form of a _fish_, to which Horace is supposed to make allusion in the following words: - Desinat in piscem mulisr formosa superne "The upper part resembling a _beautiful woman_; the lower, a _fish_." All that was _human_ in his form was broken off from what resembled a _fish_. Here was a proof that the affair was not accidental; and these proofs of God's _power_ and _authority_ prepared the way for his _judgments_....

EXPOSITION THE ARK OF GOD IN PHILISTIA (1 Samuel 5:1). 1 SAMUEL 5:1 THE PHILISTINES TOOK THE ARK OF GOD. The silence of Scripture is often as remarkable as what it tells us. From Psalms 78:60-19; Jeremiah 7:12; Jeremiah 26:9, we gather that from Aphek the Philistines marched upon Shiloh, and having captured it, put all whom they found there to the sword, a

AND WHEN THEY AROSE EARLY ON THE MORROW MORNING,.... For the same purpose as before; unless they had any curiosity to indulge, to see whether the ark and Dagon agreed better together, if they had any suspicion that the former mischance was to be attributed to some variance and disagreement between them: BEHOLD, DAGON WAS FALLEN UPON HIS FACE TO THE GROUND BEFORE THE ARK OF THE LORD: again, and in a worse condition than before: AND THE HEAD OF DAGON, AND BOTH THE PALMS OF HIS HANDS, WERE CUT OFF UPON THE THRESHOLD; of the temple, upon which he fell with such force, that the threshold cut off his head, and both his hands; which signified he had neither wisdom to contrive for his own safety, nor strength and power to defend himself; and therefore of what advantage could he be to his votaries? This may be an emblem of the fall of idolatry in the Gentile world, before the preaching of Chris...

6. THE ARK IN THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES AND ITS RETURN CHAPTER 5 _ 1. The ark in the house of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:1)_ 2. The Philistines smitten by Jehovah (1 Samuel 5:6) The ark was brought to Ashdod, the leading city of the Philistines, and set up in the temple dedicated to Dagon, the chief god of the people. It was half fish and half man, the symbol of fertility. Before this idol the ark was set up. In their blindness they imagined that Dagon had conquered the God of Israel. The next morning they found Dagon fallen with his face to the earth before the ark. It was the Lord who did it and not an accident. The next morning the whole idol-image, except the fish-part, is fallen upon the ground. “The head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands lay cut off upon the threshold.” T

1 SAMUEL 5. THE ARK IN THE PHILISTINE CITIES. 1 Samuel 5:1. Ashdod. 1 Samuel 5:8. Gath. 1 Samuel 5:10. Ekron: see Joshua 11:22; Joshua 13:3; p 28. 1 Samuel 5:2. Dagon: see Judges 16:23 *. 1 Samuel 5:3. The Ark is thought of as possessing marvellous inherent powers; it brings disaster on

ONLY... DAGON. The hands and feet being gone, only Dagon (the fish part) remained....

_cut off upon the threshold_ i.e. cut off and lying upon the doorsill, probably not of the main entrance to the temple, but of the chapel or recess in which the statue stood. In this position they would be liable to the indignity of being trampled upon by the priests and worshippers who entered the shrine. _only the stump of Dagon was left to him_ Lit., _only Dagon was left upon him_. Either some word for -trunk" or -body" has been lost in the original, or -Dagon" is used to denote the fish-shaped body of the idol, from which the god derived his name. "Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopped off In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers." _Paradise Lost_, I. 457....

ONLY THE STUMP OF DAGON WAS LEFT TO HIM— In the Hebrew it is, _only Dagon remained to him;_ where Dagon, says Houbigant, is taken for the principal part of his statue, or the trunk of his body. Kimchi says, _nothing but the form of a fish remained to him._ Thus the Lord shewed that there was no God besides him. His ark, though taken captive and carried into a strange land, threw down their idol twice; thereby demonstrating that the Israelites were not overthrown for want of any power in their God to defend them, but for the iniquity of those who worshipped him. See Bishop Patrick, and St. Chrysostom's Orat. 5: adversus Jud. REFLECTIONS.—Though Israel seem utterly to have neglected the ark of God, and neither by force nor treaty seek to recover it, yet God will not suffer the ungodly to triumph for ever. We have here, 1. The Philistines triumphing over their prisoner. With solemnity they...