So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.
Ver. 11. Let it go again to his own place.] Hoc magno mercentur Hebraei. It is reported of the people in the East Indies, in the isle Ceylon; that having an ape's tooth got from them, which was a consecrated thing by them, they offered an incredible mass of treasure to recover it. But what an ape's face was the devil a to set Herodotus b the historian a-work, to say that at Ascalon, a city of the Philistines, Venus had a temple, - Dagon is by some thought to be Venus, - which when certain thieves robbed, they were smitten with emerods!
a Satan est Dei Simia.
b Joseph., lib. x. cap. 1.