Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter the Fifth. Synopsis of the Chapter
The ark, taken by the Philistines and placed in the temple of Dagon, prostrates and mutilates Dagon. Soon God, verse 6, afflicts the Azotians with shameful diseases and with mice; thence, verse 9, the Gethites, and verse 10, the Accaronites: wherefore they decide that the ark must be sent back to Israel.
1. And the Philistines took the ark of God, and carried it from the Stone of help into Azotus. 2. And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the temple of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 3. And when the Azotians arose early the next day, behold Dagon lay on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord: and they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4. And again the next day, when they arose in the morning, they found Dagon lying upon his face on 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. 5. Only the stump of Dagon was left in his place. For this cause neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that go into his temple, tread upon the threshold of Dagon in Azotus unto this day. 6. But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Azotians, and he destroyed them; and he smote Azotus and the coasts thereof in the more secret part of the buttocks. And in the villages and fields in the midst of that country, there came forth mice, and there was the confusion of a great mortality in the city. 7. And the men of Azotus seeing this kind of plague, said: The ark of the God of Israel shall not stay with us: for his hand is heavy upon us, and upon Dagon our god. 8. And sending, they gathered together all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said: What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And the Gethites answered: Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about. 9. And while they were carrying it about, the hand of the Lord came upon every city with an exceeding great slaughter: and he smote the men of every city, both small and great, and their secret parts rotted away. And the Gethites consulted together and made themselves seats of skins. 10. They sent therefore the ark of God into Accaron. And when the ark of God was come into Accaron, the Accaronites cried out, saying: They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people. 11. They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines: and they said: Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return into its own place, and not kill us and our people. 12. For there was a fear of death in every city, and the hand of God was exceeding heavy. The men also that did not die were struck in the more secret part of the buttocks: and the cry of every city went up to heaven.
2. THEY SET IT BY DAGON,—their idol, or god, both to honour him with this gift, says St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4; and to bring to him as author of victory these noblest spoils, says Josephus, book 6, chapter 1. Theodoret and Procopius, as if they said: Behold our Dagon has conquered the God of the Hebrews, and made us their victors. Let the ark of God therefore be put under the feet of Dagon.
For this cause God, avenging so great an injury to Himself, cast down Dagon, and slew very many Philistines with death.
Hear Theodoret and Procopius: “While the Philistines, at the appearing of the ark and the shouting of the Hebrews, were frightened, they received profit and help; but when, after the victory, they despised the same ark, they learned by experience how great was the power of God.”
You will ask, who and what was Dagon? I answer, he was the chief god of the Philistines. Lilius Gyraldus, On the Gods of the Gentiles, syntagma 2, page 109, judges that Dagon was Jupiter the Ploughman, whom the Phoenicians worshipped as inventor of grain and plough, and therefore called Dagon from dagan, that is, grain: so also Eusebius, book 1 On the Preparation, Arias, Pagninus and others, who judge that Dagon was a god of corn, or president of grain, who gave to his worshippers plenty of harvest and abundance of grain.
Others commonly derive Dagon from daga, that is, fish, because this idol had the form of a fish: for since the Philistines were dwellers by the sea, they gave attention to fishing, and therefore made and worshipped Dagon as president of fishes and fishing. Whence St. Jerome in the Questions: “Dagon,” he says, “is the same in Hebrew as the fish of sadness.” Moreover this idol was indeed in the appearance of a fish, but mixed with a man. It was therefore composed of man and fish, so that the head (though Lyranus, Abulensis, Adrichomius and others judge that Dagon had a fish’s head) and hands were a man’s, and the other members from the navel downward ended in the tail of a fish. This is plain from the fact that its hands were cut off before the ark, verse 4. So Vatablus, Cajetan and others to be cited presently. Dagon was therefore like the Nereids, Tritons and Sirens, who have a woman’s face and end in a fish; of whom Horace in the Art of Poetry:
A woman beautiful above ends in a fish.
It is confirmed, because the Syrians and Palestinians worshipped fishes as gods and divinities. “The Syrians,” says Xenophon, book 1 of the Expedition of Cyrus, “hold fishes sacrosanct.” Cicero, book 3 On the Nature of the Gods: “The Syrians,” he says, “venerate a fish.” Clement of Alexandria in the Exhortation to the Gentiles: “The Syrians who inhabit Phoenicia greatly worship doves and fishes.” Diodorus Siculus, book 2, chapter 2: “Whence the Syrians,” he says, “abstaining from these fishes to this day, worship them as gods.”
Moreover, Josephus and others assert that Dagon is Derceto (whom others call Atergatis), 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, so that below she has the tail of a fish, above the face of a human being, namely a woman.
Wherefore Diodorus Siculus in the place already cited, Antonius Nebrissensis, in Quinquagenae chapter 6, Sanchez, Lyranus, Abulensis, Scaliger, Serarius and others judge that Dagon or Derceto is Venus. For fishes, like Venus, are luxuriant and wonderfully prolific. Whence Venus is said to have been born from the sea, and thence is called Aphrodite, and by the Poets is feigned to be transformed into a fish. Hear Ovid, book 4 of the Metamorphoses:
Derceto, whom the Palestinians believe, her limbs changed and covered with scales, to have haunted the pools in that shape.
Cytherea changed herself into a fish, when she fled and plunged into the Babylonian waves.
It favours this that Herodotus, book 1, relates that Venus was wonderfully worshipped by the Ascalonites in her most ancient temple, and that the Cypriots thence dedicated a like temple to her.
Moreover the Gentiles named and worshipped their gods both in female form, as were Venus and Derceto, and in male, nay painted one and the same now as a man, now as a woman, as Macrobius testifies, Saturnalia book 3; Horace, book 1, Apol. 12; and Ammonius, On Interpretation. See Serarius on Judges chapter 16, Question 25. Hear also Rhodiginus, book 25, chapter 5: “Semiramis,” he says, “fabulous history reports to have been the daughter of a certain goddess Derceto. Her temple had been at Ascalon, a city of Syria, by a pool full of fishes. Pliny calls the same the portentous Atergatis, because she was of a human face, and the rest of her body ended in a fish. They say that Venus, made hostile to that goddess, once cast into her the love of a handsome youth, with whom Derceto, having mingled, conceived a daughter, etc. But Derceto, stung with grief at the disgrace of the deed, cast herself headlong into a lake, and, being deformed, was changed into a fish.”
Tropologically, Philistiim in Hebrew is the same as sprinkled or sprinklers, or those who lay down ruin, or those who drink ruin, says Pagninus: 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”: these sprinkle themselves and others with the filth of gluttony and luxury, and drink ruin, because they bring on themselves present and eternal death, according to Paul: “He that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.”