Chapter 10
When the Philistines took the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon, first Dagon himself, then also the people and the land were punished appropriately, and the Ark remained with them for seven months. (1 Sam. 5) The Philistines took the Ark of God, etc. This reading mystically indicates that when the faith of the covenant is received by the uncircumcised, first the idols must be humbled, and without delay, utterly destroyed, and that those who revert after knowing the faith must be punished with appropriate vengeance.
[1 Samuel 5:1] -- The Philistines took the Ark of God, etc. The Gentiles received the word of the Gospel from Judea, where the Lord was born in the flesh, lived, and suffered, leaving the places of His dispensation sacred to the mysteries to this day. And they carried it, with a joyous reputation, into the foreign provinces of the world, which until then were burning with the flames of sins, dissolved by the enticements of the flesh. Hence, Azotus, which is called Eradod in Hebrew, according to its ancient name, signifies dissolution or effusion, or conflagration.
[1 Samuel 5:2] -- And they brought it into the temple of Dagon. And they brought faith into the world, which was set in wickedness, and concerning which the Lord said: When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, all his possessions are in peace; but if one stronger than he assaults him and overcomes him, he will take away all his armor in which he trusted, and divide his spoils (1 John 5; Luke 11). Dagon was strong when he guarded the foolish weapons of paganism in his hall. The ark of faith is stronger, which victorious of this took the spoils of impiety, and made them the weapons and spoils of piety.
[1 Samuel 5:2] -- And they set it beside Dagon. And they erected the churches of Christ among the nations, while in some places the worship of idols still remained. For Dagon, which is interpreted as the fish of sorrow, signifies not only the person, but also by name, him who, existing from the beginning as the author of our miseries, is called by the prophet the king of all that are in the waters. Concerning whom the Lord narrates many things in blessed Job under the figure of Leviathan (Job 40). And whom Tobias, which is interpreted as the good of God, by the guidance of the archangel, draws out from the waves, dissects, roasts, eats, salts, and carries with him for remedies and provision. That is to say, the Lord Savior overcomes by His divine power the devil who desires his fleshly food, snatches him from his hidden traps; and cutting off his members of iniquity, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, and cooked by the fire of the Holy Spirit, transfers them into the members of His body, which is the Church, and through these provides aids of salvation to others. For by means of those whom the Lord saves, taken from the devil, He will save both the pagan from the deception of idolatry, and the Jews, from whom He took flesh, from the error of their unbelief at the end of the world. It is clear, therefore, what Tobias signifies, when through the entrails of the dissected fish, he liberates both his wife from the demon, and his parent from blindness.
[1 Samuel 5:3] -- And when they rose early in the morning, etc. The signs of miracles becoming clear through the heralds of faith, the worship of idolatry fell away among those who were able to be converted to Christ; but, although it was betrayed and exposed, which is vanity, it was recovered among those who moved the weapons of perfidy against the truth.
[1 Samuel 5:4] -- And again rising early in the morning the next day, etc. As the light of heavenly signs gradually increased, the face of idolatry was confused before the faithful of Christ, and they confessed as earthly and perishable all that they had hitherto done or believed.
[1 Samuel 5:4] -- But the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands, etc. The head of all sin, the pride of the devil, and the work of idolatry; which, as if with two palms, was conducted by the profession of impiety, the ceremonies of praises and sacrifices, already separated from the related body, that is, the crowds of seducers adhering to it, was now, and about to be cast out, prepared by the growing triumph of Christ; who showed, as it were, the head and hands of the truncated Dagon lying on the threshold, when he said: "Now is the judgment of the world, now the prince of this world shall be cast out" (John 12).
[1 Samuel 5:4] -- Moreover, the trunk of Dagon alone, etc. Moreover, the people, having cast off and eliminated the profession of idolatry, and the operations of the demonic, among those who had advanced in faith, as if near the ark of God, preferred to remain humble and submissive, rather than to be cast out with the devil, that is, to be anathematized by the members of the Church. And the state of Dagon is not asserted to have been restored as before, because after many struggles of the Church, a cessation had occurred, from the defense of false gods, and victory was given to the one true God, Christ.
[1 Samuel 5:5] -- For this reason, the priests of Dagon do not tread, etc. For the reason that the devil is to be cast out and condemned in the end, all those who perversely follow him either by teaching or acting, prompted by him, shun considering and guarding against the time of his sentence and condemnation. Indeed, before his worshippers turn away from iniquity, he, concerned for them, suspends their understanding, almost like the advance of the mind, from foreseeing the future or their own destruction. And this continues to the present day, that is, until each of them recognizes the light of truth, which whoever follows, not walking in darkness perpetually. Nor does he fear to tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, for with diligent mind he contemplates and dreads the punishment of the wicked, who burn with earthly desires, and their leader the devil, moreover, striving to sprinkle his own threshold with the blood of the paschal lamb, turned towards better things, that is, to secure his entrance and exit with the mystery of the Lord's passion. Therefore, the head and feet of the truncated Dagon on the threshold are deterred from contact with the same threshold. However, the blood of the immaculate lamb always renders safe those who remember it from the enemy, because the devil, whom he deceives, removes the consideration of the end that leads to impious Tartarus, both theirs and his own. But the Lord, whom he redeemed by the example of his passion and resurrection, always teaches them to hope for life after death.
[1 Samuel 5:6] -- But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Ashdodites, etc. Those who, having taken up the ark of God, grieve for Dagon's destruction and set up his ruin, are struck in their hind parts, and their land is ravaged by mice. For those who, having been taught the recognition of faith or even mysteries, either do not endure the idols to be cast down, or allow themselves to be forbidden from vices, because they look back, do not abandon the uncleanness of their old life, and reclaim those things which they ought to have forgotten and regarded as dung, as the Apostle says (Philippians 3). They are punished by the things they choose, and that becomes the cause of punishment to the wretched, which was the pleasure of their guilt. But even if they seem to produce any good, those who keep the eyes of their mind turned backwards, the root of their thought and the fruit of their action are destroyed by unclean spirits. The Lord struck not only Ashdod where Dagon was, but all the borders of Ashdod because he condemns and rejects not only the capital crimes in which the manifest work of the devil is evident, but also the small ones which appear minor or light sins to men, by the sentence of the strict judge. Ultimately, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (Matthew 12).
[1 Samuel 5:7] -- Seeing the men of Ashdod had such a plague, etc. Upon seeing the idol worshippers experience the power of Christ against their gods, they refuse to accept his faith, lest on account of this they might be compelled to renounce their whole host of gods. Similarly, false Christians, seeing that due to faith in Christ the sins they love are forbidden to them, detest the religion of faith as much as they can, lest on this occasion they be commanded to extinguish the desires which they serve in place of God. The men of Ashdod in every respect, that is, worthy of the name of rift, dissolution, and burning, refuse to know the sacred Scriptures so that having known them, they would have to act according to what they have learned; and because of the Lord's sentence, which states that those who are ignorant of his will shall receive fewer stripes, they refuse to know what they ought to do: not understanding that there is a great difference between being simply ignorant and refusing to know what ought to be learned. And so, feeling this as harsh to their own wills, they impudently repel the ark of heavenly knowledge from themselves.
[1 Samuel 5:8] -- And the Gittites replied: Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried around, etc. And this carrying around of the ark suits the present time of our age, where each of the weak desires the difficult words of the Lord to be fulfilled by others rather than by themselves. But even barbarian nations, which have recently accepted the faith of Christ, soon become enfeebled by soft desires, thinking this charge should be given to others rather than be exercised among themselves for longer.
[1 Samuel 5:9] -- However, while they were carrying it around, the hand of the Lord came down, etc. Those who receive faith transiently and without fixed intention not only gain no advantage by believing, but also wretchedly deserve eternal punishment for the price of salvation.
[1 Samuel 5:9] -- And their prominent entrails spoiled. And the meditation of their inner heart fell back into blind and dirty matters of the present life, full of foul dung and blood of vices, appearing before all; a type of affliction to which the madness of the heretics can be compared, as shown even by the death of Arius; who, with his bowels pouring out through his backside, miserably found an end to his heretical teaching and the beginning of punishments worthy of heretics.
[1 Samuel 5:11] -- They sent therefore, and gathered all the satraps of the Philistines, etc. Many believers of the nations today, though not in words, say: Abandon the faith, and let it return to the children of Israel, so that at last, having cut us off, they may be grafted according to nature into their own olive tree. For it is better that the ignorant perish, than to be condemned for the transgression of faith, which we cannot keep, along with other sins.
[1 Samuel 5:12] -- And the wailing of each city went up to heaven. And the murmur and impatience and the clamor of Sodom, falsely significant among the faithful, in whichever places, or persons, or certainly senses of the body, which are five for the cities of the Philistines, can never escape the strict judge, who foretelling such times with a dreadful sentence says: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke XVIII.)
[1 Samuel 6:1] -- Therefore the ark of the Lord was in the region of the Philistines for seven months. Seven often expresses the universality of any matter, either of time, or number, or surely the fullness of spiritual grace. But the month, which is varied by the increase and decrease of the lunar light, insinuates the state of the Church laboring between good and bad times, but never failing from the Sun of righteousness. Therefore, the ark of the Lord's faith has been and will be among the nations for the entire time of the age, in which the grace of the sevenfold Holy Spirit will fill the Church and be worthy to illuminate lands, as if they were weak and subject to itself. But according to the literal present reading, which narrates that the Philistines were struck by the proximity of the ark of the Lord, it teaches that no unclean person should presume to approach the holy things; but whoever wishes to receive the Lord's body, or handle His most sacred words, let him prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, discipline his body, and bring it into subjection, lest preaching to others, he himself should become a castaway (1 Corinthians XI, 9).