CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1 Samuel 5:1. “Ashdod.” One of the five Philistine satrapies, about thirty-two miles north of Gaza, and about a mile from the sea. It is now the little village of Esdûd.
1 Samuel 5:2. “Dagon.” One of the chief Philistine deities. “With regard to the image of Dagon, compounded of a man and fish, i.e., of a human body with head and hands, and a fish’s tail, see Stark’s Gaza and Layard’s Nineveh, where there is a bas-relief from Khorsabad, in which ‘a figure is seen swimming in the sea, with the upper part of the body resembling a bearded man, wearing the ordinary conical tiara of royalty, adorned with elephant’s tusks, and the lower part resembling the body of a fish.’ (Starke.) As the bas-relief represents (according to Layard) the war of an Assyrian king with the inhabitants of the coasts of Syria, most probably of Sargon, who had to carry on a long conflict with the Philistian towns, more especially with Ashdod, there can hardly be any doubt that we have a representation of the Philistian Dagon here. This deity was a personification of the generative and vivifying principle of nature for which the fish, with its innumerable multiplication, was specially adapted, and set forth the Giver of all earthly good.” (Keil.)
1 Samuel 5:4. “The word were is not in the original, and would be better omitted; the head and palms of Dagon, being cut off, were lying on the threshold. Here was the miracle, and it was very significant. It was done by the Divine power. The head and palms of Dagon, the chiefest of his members, the emblems of his strength, were lopped off.” (Wordsworth.) “Only the stump,” etc. Literally, “only Dagon, the fish (from dag, a fish), the ignoblest part, was left.” (Wordsworth.)
1 Samuel 5:5. “Therefore neither the priests—tread on the threshold,” etc. “Cf. Zephaniah 1:9. ‘On the same day will I punish all those that leap on (or over) the threshold.’ No doubt this phrase was intended (perhaps with some irony) to describe the worshippers of the Philistian Dagon.” (Hobson.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH— 1 Samuel 5:1-5
THE FALL OF DAGON
I. God works in silence and in secret against false systems of religion to give men a public and sudden proof of their folly. Dagon’s downfall took place in the secrecy of the night: when daylight came, his destruction was made apparent. God’s kingdom of nature, and His kingdom of grace, are alike in this, that neither “come with observation” (Luke 17:20). All the winter nature seems to be at a standstill, but all the time secret preparation is going on beneath the ground and within the plants for the outburst of life and beauty in the spring. And in His spiritual kingdom there have often been times and seasons in which there has seemed to be hardly any true religious life left in the world, when solitary believers in God here and there have been ready to exclaim with the prophet of old, “I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:14). But it has often been found that such seasons of darkness have been followed by a day in which the truth of God has won great victories in the hearts of men, giving proof that His spirit has been, during all the long night, working silently and secretly in men’s hearts. So it was before the downfall of Paganism after the coming of Christ, and before the overthrow of the Papal tyranny at the time of the Reformation. When the pious Israelite lay down that night and thought of the sacred ark of the covenant in the house of Dagon, he must have been ready to exclaim with the dying wife of Phinehas, “The glory is departed from Israel.” But God at that very hour was working in secret, and was dealing a heavy blow at the idolatry of the Philistines.
II. Even miraculous evidence does not always suffice to bring men to acknowledge God. Experience of the fallacy of the advice of a quack is the surest way, we think, to lead men to put faith in the advice of a skilful physician; and when men have had the powerlessness of the gods whom they worship proved to them by unmistakable evidence, we should expect them to be ready to embrace a religion based upon supernatural evidence if history and experience did not testify to the contrary. Dagon testified by his first fall that “an idol is nothing in the world” (1 Corinthians 8:4). But it brought no conviction into the minds of the Philistine priests. They “set him in his place again.” His second fall upon the threshold seemed to tell them that he was only fit to be trodden under foot, yet they venerated the spot upon which he fell. But the Philistines were not more unwilling to receive evidence of the truth than the majority of mankind. Israel was formed into a nation by miraculous power, and sustained miraculously for forty years, and over and over again were delivered from their distresses by miraculous interposition, yet God’s testimony concerning them is, “Ephraim is joined unto idols” (Hosea 4:17). The Son of God Himself proved that He came from the Father by His “mighty works,” but they made no impression upon the mass of the Jewish people. A delusion proved is not a delusion abandoned. And Our Lord Himself tells us the reason why. It is because “men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
1 Samuel 5:1-5. Dagon before the ark, or heathenism conquered at the feet of the living God.
1. In the domain of its power—its own abode (1 Samuel 5:1-2).
2. Through the secret demonstration of the power of the Lord (1 Samuel 5:3-4).
3. Amid the destruction of its power and glory—the face, as a sign of its worthless glory and vain beauty, struck down to the earth; the head also, as the seat of the wisdom which is alienated from God, and opposed to God; the hands, as a symbol of the powers of darkness which work therein, cut off (1 Samuel 5:3-5). The fall of heathenism.
1. It is thrown down before the power of God, manifesting Himself as present in His Word (the law and testimony in the ark).
2. Its power broken and destroyed through the secretly working power of the Spirit of God.
3. Ever a more and more glorious revelation of the power of God, which casts down heathenism in the light of the day of salvation.—Lange’s Commentary.
Where God comes with His ark and with His testimony, there He smites the idols to the ground; idolatry must fall where His gospel finds a place.—Berlenberger Bible.
If men’ did not mistake God, they could not arise to such heights of impiety; the acts of His just judgments are imputed to impotence. Dagon had never so great a day, so many sacrifices, as now that he seems to take the God of Israel prisoner. Where should the captive be bestowed, but in custody of the victor? It is not love, but insultation, that lodges the ark close beside Dagon. What a spectacle was this, to see uncircumcised Philistines laying their profane hands on the testimony of God’s presence! to see the glorious mercy-seat under the roof of an idol! to see the two cherubims spreading their wings under a false god! O the deep and holy wisdom of the Almighty, which over-reaches all the finite conceits of His creatures, who, while He seems most to neglect Himself, fetches about most glory to His own name! He winks and sits still on purpose to see what men would do, and is content to suffer indignity from His creature for a time, that He may be everlastingly magnified in His justice and power: that honour pleaseth God and men best, which is raised out of contempt.… If the Israelites put confidence in the ark, can we marvel that the Philistines did put confidence in that power, which, as they thought, had conquered the ark? The less is ever subject unto the greater; what could they now think, but that heaven and earth were theirs? Security and presumption attend ever at the threshold of ruin. God will let them sleep in this confidence; in the morning they shall find how vainly they have dreamed! Now they begin to find they have but gloried in their own plague, and overthrown nothing but their own peace.… Dagon hath a house, when God hath but a tabernacle; it is no measuring of religion by outward glory.—Bishop Hall.
The foolish Philistines thought that the same house could hold both the ark and Dagon, as if an insensible statue were a fit companion for the living God. In the morning they come to thank Dagon for the victory, and to fall down before him before whom they thought the God of Israel was fallen; and lo! now they find the keeper flat on his face before the prisoner. Had they formerly, of their own accord, with awful reverence, laid him in this posture of a humble prostration, yet God would not have brooked the indignity of such an entertainment. But seeing they durst set up their idol cheek by cheek with their Maker, let them go read their folly in the temple floor, and confess that He who did cast their god so low, could cast them lower. Such a shame doth the Lord owe all them which will be making matches betwixt Him and Belial. Yet they consider not, How should this god raise us who is not able to stand or rise himself? Strange they must confess it, that whereas Dagon was wont to stand, and themselves to fall down; now Dagon was fallen down, and themselves stood, and must help up with their own god. Yea, their god seems to worship them on his face, and to crave that succour from them which he was never able to give them. Yet in his place they set him again, and now lift up those hands to him which helped to lift him up and prostrate those faces to him before whom he lay prostrate. So can idolatry turn men into the stocks and stones which they worship: “They that make them are like unto them.” But will the Lord put it up thus? No, the next fall shall burst it to pieces; that they may sensibly perceive how God scorns a competitor, and that there is no agreement betwixt Him and idols. Now, what is the difference between the Philistines and the Papists? The Philistines would set God in the temple of idols; the Papists would set idols in the temple of God. Both agree in this, that they would make God and idols agree together.—T. Adams.
1 Samuel 5:3. Because you have broken your purpose, do not allow it to go unmended. Even the heathen, with so base a conception of divinity as Dagon was, when Dagon fell to the ground, lifted him up again and put him in his place. When, not your idol, but your bright ideal, falls to the ground, though its head and its feet be broken, lift it up and put it in its place again. Because you have broken faith and fealty to that which you meant to be, and meant to do, it is no reason why you should not swear again, and again go forward.—Beecher.
1 Samuel 5:4. The prevalence of idolatry in the heart of man. Dagon has still his temple there. The great idolatry of mankind is self.… Christ is the true ark of the covenant, and when He takes possession of the temple of man’s heart, then the Dagon of the place is dethroned; it loses its head and hands, its carnal wisdom and carnal works, at the very threshold of the sanctuary, but still the stump is left; however powerful the principle of indwelling grace may be, there is still the remnant of indwelling sin. And while we might unfeignedly desire that even the stump of sin and self were gone, we may well be thankful if no more be left.… We know not whether the priests of Dagon erected another idol upon the stump of the broken one; but this we know, that many idols are contending for the throne of man’s heart, and when one Dagon is deposed, he leaves his stump upon which another is quickly raised. But the same Almighty grace which cast down one shall triumph over all. The covenant ensures the death of sin, the life of grace, and the crown of glory, and when grace has brought you to glory you will rejoice to all eternity, that “only the stump of Dagon was left.”—Fenn.