1 Samuel 5:12

And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:6-12 The hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Philistines; he not only convinced them of their folly, but severely chastised their insolence. Yet they would not renounce Dagon; and instead of seeking God's mercy, they desired to get clear of his ark. Carnal hearts, when they smart under the judgments of God, would rather, if it were possible, put him far from them, than enter into covenant or communion with him, and seek him for their friend. But their devices to escape the Divine judgments only increase them. Those that fight against God will soon have enough of it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The "lords" (see Judges 3:3) were very unwilling to give up their triumph, and, with the common pagan superstition, imagined that some local bad luck was against them at Ashdod. The result was to bring the whole Philistine community under the same calamity.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. the cry of the city went up to heaven—The disease is attended with acute pain, and it is far from being a rare phenomenon in the Philistian plain [Van De Velde].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The men that died not; either of some other plague or ulcer, as may be thought from 1 Samuel 5:6, or of the emerods, which infested and tormented even those whom it did not kill.

The cry of the city, or, of that city where the ark was; and the city is put for the people inhabiting it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods,.... As the inhabitants of Ashdod and Gath had been; this shows that those that died did not die of that disease, but of some other; very likely the pestilence:

and the cry of the city went up to heaven; not that it was heard and regarded there, but the phrase is used to denote the greatness of it, how exceeding loud and clamorous it was; partly on the account of the death of so many of the inhabitants, their relations and friends; and partly because of the intolerable pain they endured through the emerods. There is something of this history preserved in a story wrongly told by Herodotus (b), who relates that the Scythians returning from Egypt passed through Ashkelon, a city of Syria (one of the five principalities of the Philistines), and that some of them robbed the temple of Venus there; for which the goddess sent on them and their posterity the disease of emerods, and that the Scythians themselves acknowledged that they were troubled with it on that account.

(b) Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 105.

Geneva Study Bible

And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. the cry of the city went up to heaven] Cp. Exodus 2:13. The word used always denotes a supplication, a cry for help.

Each city was visited with a heavier judgment than the preceding one. “The longer the Philistines resisted and refused to recognise the chastening hand of the living God in the plagues inflicted upon them, the more severely would they necessarily be punished.” So when Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the Israelites go, the hand of the Lord grew heavier and heavier, till an unwilling consent was wrung from him.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - The cry of the city went up to heaven. Not the word used in ver. 10, where it is an outcry of indignation, but a cry for help, a cry of sorrow and distress. Though in ver. 10 Ekronites is in the plural, yet in all that follows the singular is used. "They have brought about the ark to me, to slay me and my people... That it slay me not and my people." It is the prince of Ekron who, as the representative of the people, expostulates with his fellow rulers for the wrong they are doing him. But finally all join in his lamentation, and the whole city, smitten by God's band sends up its prayer to heaven for mercy.



1 Samuel 5:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

They therefore sent the ark of God to Ekron, i.e., Akir, the north-western city of the Philistines (see at Joshua 13:3). But the Ekronites, who had been informed of what had taken place in Ashdod and Gath, cried out, when the ark came into their city, "They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to me, to slay me and my people" (these words are to be regarded as spoken by the whole town); and they said to all the princes of the Philistines whom they had called together, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, that it may return to its place, and not slay me and my people. For deadly alarm (מות מהוּמת, confusion of death, i.e., alarm produced by many sudden deaths) ruled in the whole city; very heavy was the hand of God there. The people who did not die were smitten with boils, and the cry of the city ascended to heaven." From this description, which simply indicates briefly the particulars of the plagues that God inflicted upon Ekron, we may see very clearly that Ekron was visited even more severely than Ashdod and Gath. This was naturally the case. The longer the Philistines resisted and refused to recognise the chastening hand of the living God in the plagues inflicted upon them, the more severely would they necessarily be punished, that they might be brought at last to see that the God of Israel, whose sanctuary they still wanted to keep as a trophy of their victory over that nation, was the omnipotent God, who was able to destroy His foes.