So, if you haven't guessed by now my present reading of Scripture is 1 Samuel. I have bought a book that is basically an exegetical commentary of the books of Samuel, which I am now using in my time with God (which is considerably longer reading than it has been before.) One of the things I love to do is discuss with Him the things going on as I read them and the commentary is one of the ways He tells me about the passage. Another is the fact that these daily thoughts generally are not on passages I have looked at TODAY but usually YESTERDAY but I can't get them out of my head.
Some of you won't know who Dagon is. There was a nation north west of the nation of Israel during the time of the Judges, Samuel, Saul and David called Philistia. It is from here that Goliath and the Philistines come. One of their gods was an invention known as Dagon. In iconography Dagon was portrayed as a creature similar to a merman. He had a fish like body with a human torso and head. (You can Google Image him if you like).
The Philistines were the main enemies of the Israelites and were often at war with them (pretty much at any given opportunity actually). In one of these wars the people of Israel were not doing so well so they sent people to the Tabernacle in Shiloh (were Samuel and Eli were probably still living at this time) and they took the Ark of the Covenant out of 'Samuel's bedroom', the Holy of Holies. They brought the Ark, as if it were a good luck charm, to the battle and believed that they would now win the battle because Yahweh was in the camp (remember they believed He dwelt on the mercy seat between the two cherubim decorating the lid of the ark).
The Philistines were terrified when they saw the Ark of the Covenant enter into the camp of their enemies for they knew there was now a god there and this particular God, they knew, had done wonders in Egypt and the wilderness (though they were confused as to the exact details). They had never fought a war against a god before and this gave the Philistines a new sense of determination; they would fight with everything they had.
The Israelites on the other hand seem to have grown complacent. Now that the Ark of the LORD was in their midst they did not need to worry about the battle anymore. The way Scripture records their defeat is interesting because it sounds as if they just sat there while the Philistines killed them. "So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell." (1 Samuel 4:10 ESV)
See how that's worded? The Philistines fought but the Israelites were just defeated.
The Ark of the Covenant is taken by the Philistines as part of the spoils of war. They had taken, not just money, weapons, animals, women etc etc; but an actual god. They brought the Ark to Ashdod in Philistia, one of the five major cities.
In the meantime news of the Ark's capture gets back to Eli in the Tabernacle. His sons, who had carried the Ark, were dead, the army was defeated and the Ark gone. On hearing the third of these Eli faints and because he is so fat his own weight causes his neck to be broken and he dies.
In Ashdod the people are getting tumours and boils. According to extra-biblical writings these boils and tumours appeared on the people's groins (which would be more irritating and more painful than anywhere else) also there was a plague of rats. Ultimately it was for this reason that the Philistines sent the Ark back to Israel but not before both of the gods could do battle.
The Ark was stored in the temple of Dagon in Ashdod. Each morning it was there the Philistine priests would come in to find the statue of Dagon bowing, face first, to the Ark; or broken.
I wonder what the Philistines thought as they saw this the second time. Seeing as Dagon was their god I imagine he had some form of power, and as he was half fish I assume it was power over water. God brought down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah so I think the Philistines, had they seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would imagine a battle between the two deities as similar to the battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort in that movie.
In the film Voldemort the bad guy, shoots a fire snake creature at Dumbledore who defeats it and temporarily traps Voldemort in a massive floating ball of water. The reason my mind went here is the water-fire thing and also the fact that to the followers of Dagon, Yahweh would be Voldemort in this situation. They would see Him as this evil foreign God that cannot accept that He and His people have been defeated and has come to do battle with their beloved Dumbledore.
Of course in this instance Dumbledore loses, and rightly so because the Lord is not the bad guy. He is the all-powerful and only true God. The actuality of the 'battle' between Yahweh and Dagon went more like this.
The Ark of the Covenant is placed beside the statue to Dagon. God's presence in with the Ark. The Lord watches until nightfall. The whole time Dagon stares at Him, unmoving, unwavering and even unaware of His existence at all. There is nothing behind those carved and sculpted eyes. There is no Dagon. The Lord watches in despair as the last ritual is performed in front of this inanimate object. He is a jealous God, but loving, God. He does not want that the Philistines would perish but that they would repent and sacrifice with the Israelites after they repented too. Yahweh looks the statue in the eye for a nano second and the statue falls, face to the floor, in front of the one true God.
The experience of the defeat of their god is both not lost and lost on the Philistines. They realise the boils and tumours and rats are from the fact that the Ark is in their cities (they move it around a bit and the disasters follow) but they still do not recognise Him as the one true God. They offer Him and offering (of gold rats and tumour models) and send the Ark in a new cart with two cows who have recently become mothers.
There is reverence there but not to the right degree. God has proven Himself more powerful than Dagon, more than once, and the Philistines recognise His power; but they just send Him back across the border and wait for the day they can attack the Israelites again. They learned nothing.
This is evidenced in chapter 7 when Samuel gathers the people together, all of Israel, at Mizpah. The exact amount of time between both events (the Ark coming home and this all-Israel meeting) is not mentioned but what is is that while the meeting goes on the lords of the Philistines decide it is a good time to go to battle with the Israelites again. " Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines." (1 Samuel 7:7 ESV). It seems no one learned anything from the time the Ark was in Philistia.
We can, however, we can see that God is the most powerful. We can see that nothing should come above Him and we can praise and serve the God that other gods bow before!
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