1 Samuel 5

This box is also known as the Ark of the Covenant, or the Box of the Law. It was Israel’s most sacred relic. It was a wooden chest plated with gold all over. Inside that chest was a golden jar with some manna, Aaron’s almond wood staff that budded, and stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments. Covering the chest was a lid with figures representing glorious celestial beings called cherubim. This was the place where God’s people found forgiveness (Exodus 25:10-22; Hebrews 9:4-5). It’s where God met them in the rituals they performed there and in visions seen or heard by leaders like Moses and Samuel.

Ashdod was one of five leading Philistine cities along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It was roughly 25 miles (40 km) south of the Philistine army camp at Aphek and the nearby Israelite camp at Ebenezer. That’s a long day’s march. Twenty miles a day was a typical day’s journey in the region. The other four leading Philistine towns were Gath, Ekron, Gaza, and Ashkelon. Ashkelon is the only one not visited by the Box of the Law.

Philistines may have put the box in Dagon’s temple as a war trophy, for bragging rights. It implied that Dagon was stronger than Israel’s God. Dagon was the Philistine top god, but it’s unclear what his specialty was. One hint is that the Hebrew and the Canaanite word dagan means grain. He could have been the go-to god for farmers. Philistines didn’t have exclusive rights to Dagon. People worshiped him throughout what is now called the Middle East. When Philistines invaded the coastland, perhaps about the same time Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish people were arriving in Canaan, they may have adopted the Dagon religion.

The questions are, what kind of bumps, and where? Were they high, low, and everywhere? Or were they just low and inside? The Hebrew word is opel, not a jewel, but a hemorrhoid. That’s one common way of translating the word. If that’s what the Philistines got, they probably also had a little something extra—something that popped out those uncomfortable bumps: diarrhea. But the writer seems to suggest that the sickness killed people (5:11-12). We might say our hemorrhoids are killing us, but they’re not. Most scholars today seem to say the bumps were tumors, possibly from bubonic plague, which rats can spread. The first Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, called the Septuagint, mentioned mice in the story. One Greek historian, Herodotus, said Assyrian King Sennacherib, besieging Jerusalem, had to retreat and go home after mice overran the camp of his army. The Bible version of the story says many soldiers died and the army left suddenly, overnight (2 Kings 18-19).

We’re left to wonder if Gath was the only Philistine town not represented at the meeting. Gath was roughly 15 miles (34 km) east of Ashdod, almost a day’s walk away.

Ekron was a little more than 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Gath, closer to the coast. It was about a half-day trip each way.