Then said they, What [shall be] the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, [according to] the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague [was] on you all, and on your lords.
Ver. 4. Five golden emerods, and five golden mice.] All these things were not only superstitious, but ridiculous: suggested, as some conceive, by Satan to the diviners, in contempt of God; but they were turned by an overruling providence to his great glory. He sent the Philistines mice and emerods of flesh and blood; they return him both these in gold: to imply, saith one, a both that these judgments came out from God, and that they did gladly give him the glory of that whereof he gave them pain and sorrow: and that they would willingly buy off their pain with the best of their substance.
a Dr Hall.