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WHEN the Philistines had taken the ark of the Hebrews captive, as
I said a little before, they carried it to the city of Ashdod, and put
it by their own god, who was called Dagon, 1
as one of their spoils; but when they went into his temple the next morning
to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to the ark,
for he lay along, as having fallen down from the basis whereon he had stood:
so they took him up, and set him on his basis again, and were much troubled
at what had happened; and as they frequently came to Dagon and found him
still lying along, in a posture of adoration to the ark, they were in very
great distress and confusion. At length God sent a very destructive disease
upon the city and country of Ashdod, for they died of the dysentery or
flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them very suddenly; for
before the soul could, as usual in easy deaths, be well loosed from the
body, they brought up their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten,
and what was entirely corrupted by the disease. And as to the fruits of
their country, a great multitude of mice arose out of the earth and hurt
them, and spared neither the plants nor the fruits. Now while the people
of Ashdod were under these misfortunes, and were not able to support themselves
under their calamities, they perceived that they suffered thus because
of the ark, and that the victory they had gotten, and their having taken
the ark captive, had not happened for their good; they therefore sent to
the people of Askelon, and desired that they would receive the ark
among them. This desire of the people of Ashdod was not disagreeable to
those of Askelon, so they granted them that favor. But when they had gotten
the ark, they were in the same miserable condition; for the ark carried
along with it the disasters that the people of Ashdod had suffered, to
those who received it from them. Those of Askelon also sent it away from
themselves to others: nor did it stay among those others neither; for since
they were pursued by the same disasters, they still sent it to the neighboring
cities; so that the ark went round, after this manner, to the five cities
of the Philistines, as though it exacted these disasters as a tribute to
be paid it for its coming among them.
1 Dagon, a famous maritime god or idol, is generally supposed to have been like a man above the navel, and like a fish beneath it.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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