_THE PHILISTINES BRING THE ARK INTO THE HOUSE OF DAGON: DAGON IS FOUND IN HIS TEMPLE FALLEN TO THE EARTH BEFORE THE ARK: THE PHILISTINES ARE SMITTEN WITH EMERODS: THEY DELIBERATE CONCERNING THE RETURN OF THE ARK._ _Before Christ 1094._... [ Continue Reading ]
UNTO ASHDOD— See Joshua 11:22.... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
SMOTE THEM WITH EMERODS— See Deuteronomy 28:27 and compare 1 Samuel 5:9. At the end of this verse the LXX and Vulgate add, that "a great number of _mice_ started up out of the earth, and over-running the fields, made a great waste;" which words Houbigant admits into his text; though they seem likely... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE MEN THAT DIED NOT, &C.— The doctrine of intercommunity led the heathens into the custom of changing one tutelary deity for another; but the God of the Israelites had an absolute abhorrence of all community or alliance with the gods of the Gentiles: and the present instance of his power has s... [ Continue Reading ]