1 Samuel 5:6

But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod.—A painful and distressing sickness, in the form, perhaps, of tumours—(the word emerods should be spelt hemorrhoids)—broke out among the inhabitants of the Philistine city in which was situated the idol temple, where was placed the Ark of the Covenant. The LXX. has an addition to the Hebrew text here which speaks of a terrible land plague which, apparently from subsequent notices, visited Philistia in addition to the bodily sufferings here spoken of. The Greek Version adds to 1Samuel 5:6 these words: “and mice were produced in the land, and there arose a great and deadly confusion in the city.” In 1Samuel 6:4, &c, among the expiatory offerings sent by the idolators to Israel to appease what they imagined the offended Hebrew God, “golden mice” are mentioned: “images of the mice that mar the land.” The mouse, according to Herodotus and the testimony of hieroglyphics, was an old symbol of pestilence. The Greek translators, however, failing to understand the meaning of the offering of golden mice, added the words—apparently in accordance with a received tradition—by way of explanation.

Benson Commentary

1 Samuel 5:6. The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod — Since they were so blind as not to see his hand in throwing down their god, he smote them with such sore plagues in their own bodies as made them sensible of his power, by destroying great numbers of them. With emerods — The piles, a most painful and distressing disorder. Ashdod, and the coasts thereof — Not only the people of the city, but of the villages belonging to it, were smitten with this plague.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:6-12 The hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Philistines; he not only convinced them of their folly, but severely chastised their insolence. Yet they would not renounce Dagon; and instead of seeking God's mercy, they desired to get clear of his ark. Carnal hearts, when they smart under the judgments of God, would rather, if it were possible, put him far from them, than enter into covenant or communion with him, and seek him for their friend. But their devices to escape the Divine judgments only increase them. Those that fight against God will soon have enough of it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Emerods - A corruption of "hemorrhoids." It is mentioned Deuteronomy 28:27 among the diseases with which God threatened to punish the Israelites for disobedience.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Sa 5:6-12. The Philistines Are Smitten with Emerods.

6. the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod—The presumption of the Ashdodites was punished by a severe judgment that overtook them in the form of a pestilence.

smote them with emerods—bleeding piles, hemorrhoids (Ps 78:66), in a very aggravated form. As the heathens generally regarded diseases affecting the secret parts of the body as punishments from the gods for trespasses committed against themselves, the Ashdodites would be the more ready to look upon the prevailing epidemic as demonstrating the anger of God, already shown against their idol.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, for their incorrigibleness by the foregoing documents.

He destroyed them; partly by wasting their land, 1 Samuel 6:5; and partly by killing many of their persons, as is sufficiently implied here, 1 Samuel 5:10.

Emerods; a disease mentioned only here and Deu 28:27; it was in the hinder parts. It is needless to inquire into the nature of it. It may suffice to know that it was a very sore disease, and not only very vexatious and tormenting, but also pernicious and mortal.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But the hand of the Lord was heavy on them of Ashdod,.... Not only on their idol, but on themselves; it had crushed him to pieces, and now it fell heavy on them to their destruction:

and he destroyed them; either by the disease after mentioned they were smitten with, or rather with some other, since that seems not to be mortal, though painful; it may be with the pestilence:

and smote them with emerods; more properly haemorrhoids, which, as Kimchi says, was the name of a disease, but he says not what; Ben Gersom calls it a very painful disease, from whence comes a great quantity of blood. Josephus (u) takes it to be the dysentery or bloody flux; it seems to be what we commonly call the piles, and has its name in Hebrew from the height of them, rising up sometimes into high large tumours:

even Ashdod and the coasts thereof; not only the inhabitants of the city were afflicted with this disease, but those of the villages round about.

(u) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. But the hand of the Lord] Rather, And. “The hand of the Lord” = the putting forth of His might. Chastisement now overtook the people as well as the god.

he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods] A double calamity fell upon them (1) Their land was ravaged by a plague of mice. The present Heb. text leaves this to be inferred from ch. 1 Samuel 6:5, but the Sept. inserts here “And mice sprang up in the midst of their land, and there was a very deadly destruction in the city.” This may be merely an inference from 1 Samuel 5:11 and 1 Samuel 6:5, but the numerous divergences of the Sept. from the existing Heb. text in chaps, 5 and 6 (making full allowance for obvious glosses and errors of transcription) seem to shew that the Greek translators employed a text which had not been subjected to the final revision which fixed our present Heb. text.

(2) Their bodies were attacked by a loathsome and painful disease, either (a) emerods = haemorrhoids or bleeding piles; or more probably (b) boils, which are a characteristic symptom of the oriental plague. The latter explanation agrees better with the infectiousness and fatality of the scourge.

the coasts thereof] = the borders thereof. Coast is derived from costa, a rib, or side, and originally meant any border or frontier-line, not the sea-line only, cp. Joshua 1:4.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - But the hand of Jehovah was heavy upon them of Ashdod. I.e. his power and might were exercised in smiting them with severe plagues. A question here arises whether, as the Septuagint affirms, besides the scourge of emerods, their land was desolated by swarms of field mice. It is certain that they sent as votive offerings golden images of "the mice that mar the land" (1 Samuel 6:5); but the translators of the Septuagint too often attempt to make all things easy by unauthorised additions, suggested by the context; and so probably here it was the wish to explain why mice were sent which made them add, "and mice were produced in the land." Really the mouse was a symbol of pestilence (Herod., 2:141), and appears as such in hieroglyphics; and by sending golden mice with golden emerods the lords of the Philistines expressed very clearly that the emerods had been epidemic. This word, more correctly spelt haemorrhoids, has this in its favour, that the noun used here, ophalim, is never read in the synagogue. Wherever the word occurs the reader was instructed to say tehorim, the vowels of which are actually attached to the consonants of ophalim in the text of our Hebrew Bibles. In Deuteronomy 28:27. tehorim is mentioned as one of the loathsome skin diseases of Egypt, and though rendered "emerods" in the A.V., is possibly, as translated by Aquila, "an eating ulcer." Ophalim need only mean turnouts, swellings, its original signification being "a hill" (2 Chronicles 27:3); yet as the word was not thought fit for public reading in the synagogue, we may feel sure that it means some such tumours as the A.V. describes. 1 Samuel 5:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The visitation of God was not restricted to the demolition of the statue of Dagon, but affected the people of Ashdod as well. "The hand of Jehovah was heavy upon the Ashdodites, and laid them waste." השׁם, from שׁמם, when applied to men, as in Micah 6:13, signifies to make desolate not only by diseases, but also by the withdrawal or diminution of the means of subsistence, the devastation of the fields, and such like. That the latter is included here, is evident from the dedicatory offerings with which the Philistines sought to mitigate the wrath of the God of the Israelites (1 Samuel 6:4-5, 1 Samuel 6:11, 1 Samuel 6:18), although the verse before us simply mentions the diseases with which God visited them.

(Note: At the close of 1 Samuel 5:3 and 1 Samuel 5:6 the Septuagint contains some comprehensive additions; viz., at the close of 1 Samuel 5:3 : Καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ Κυρίου ἐπι τοὺς Ἀζωτίους καὶ ἐβασάνιζεν αὐτους, καὶ ἐπάταζεν αὐτους εἰς τάς ἕδρας αὐτων, τὴν Ἄζωτον καὶ τὰ ὅρια αὐτῆς; and at the end of 1 Samuel 5:4 : Καὶ μέσον τῆς χώρας αὐτῆς ἀνεφυησαν μύες καὶ ἐγένετο σύγχυσις θανάτου μεγάλη ἐν τῇ πολει. This last clause we also find in the Vulgate, expressed as follows: Et eballiverunt villae et agri in medio regionis illius, et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magnae in civitate. Ewald's decision with regard to these clauses (Gesch. ii. p. 541) is, that they are not wanted at 1 Samuel 5:3, 1 Samuel 5:6, but that they are all the more necessary at 1 Samuel 6:1; whereas at 1 Samuel 5:3, 1 Samuel 5:6, they would rather injure the sense. Thenius admits that the clause appended to 1 Samuel 5:3 is nothing more than a second translation of our sixth verse, which has been interpolated by a copyist of the Greek in the wrong place; whereas that of 1 Samuel 5:6 contains the original though somewhat corrupt text, according to which the Hebrew text should be emended. But an impartial examination would show very clearly, that all these additions are nothing more than paraphrases founded upon the context. The last part of the addition to 1 Samuel 5:6 is taken verbatim from 1 Samuel 5:11, whilst the first part is a conjecture based upon 1 Samuel 6:4-5. Jerome, if indeed the addition in our text of the Vulgate really originated with him, and was not transferred into his version from the Itala, did not venture to suppress the clause interpolated in the Alexandrian version. This is very evident from the words confusio mortis magnae, which are a literal rendering of σύγχυσις θανάτου μεγάλη; whereas in 1 Samuel 5:11, Jerome has given to מות מהוּמת, which the lxx rendered σύγχυσις θανάτου, the much more accurate rendering pavor mortis. Moreover, neither the Syriac nor Targum Jonath. has this clause; so that long before the time of Jerome, the Hebrew text existed in the form in which the Masoretes have handed it down to us.)

"And He smote them with עפלים, i.e., boils:" according to the Rabbins, swellings on the anus, mariscae (see at Deuteronomy 28:27). For עפלים the Masoretes have invariably substituted טחרים, which is used in 1 Samuel 6:11, 1 Samuel 6:17, and was probably regarded as more decorous. Ashdod is a more precise definition of the word them, viz., Ashdod, i.e., the inhabitants of Ashdod and its territory.