Judges 16:23

Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together,.... The five lords, with their friends, not directly upon Samson's being taken and committed to prison, but some time after; perhaps some

Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.

The lords of the Philistines gathered them together; either upon some annual or customary solemnity; or rather, upon this special occasion, to praise Dagon for this singular favour. And they did not appoint this solemn service as soon as Samson was taken, but some considerable time after, as appears by the growth of Samson’ s hair in the mean time, because they would give sufficient time and warning for all their friends and allies to come thither, and for the making of all necessary preparations for so great an occasion. Dagon is by most supposed to be an idol, whose upper part was like a man, and whose lower part was like a fish; whence there is mention of Dagon’ s hands, but not of his feet, in . And this place being near Egypt, where some of their gods were worshipped in the form of fishes, and being near the sea, it seems most probable that it was one of the sea gods of the heathens, and that it had in some part the resemblance of a fish.

Judges 16:23 Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.Ver. 23. For to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god.] That is, To Triton, the idol af those maritime nations, which was a fish downward, whence also he had his name Dagon. See 1 Samuel 5:4. Diodorus Siculus calleth this idol Derceta; others, Leucothea. And to rejoice.] Ad celebranda hilaria. So the wild Irish when they go to rob, which they account no shame, pray to God that they may meet with a booty; and when they meet with it, they account it God’ s gift, and rejoice exceedingly. Camd., Britan. Irel., p. 144.

(23) Unto Dagon their god.—Comp. 1 Samuel 5:1-2; 1 Chronicles 10:10. This was the “ Sea-monster:—upward man, And downward fish.” In 1 Samuel 5:4 we have an allusion to his stump or fish-part. Dag means “fish,” and the same root is found in Tagus. A goddess of similar form and attributes was worshipped under the name of Atargatis or Derceto (2Ma 12:26). How widely the worship was spread we see from the commonness of the name Beth-dagon in the Shephelah (Joshua 15:41). His chief temple at Azotus was burned by Judas Maccabeus (1Ma 10:83). The only other Philistine god mentioned in Scripture is Baal-zebub, god of Ekron (2 Kings 1:2-16).

Verse 23. Unto Dagon their god] Diodorus Siculus describes their god thus: Τομενπροσωπονεχειγυναικος, τοδ' αλλοσωμαπανιχθους;; "It had the head of a woman, but all the rest of the body resembled a fish." Dagon was called Dorceto among the heathens. Horace, in the following lines, especially in the third and fourth, seems to have in view the image of Dagon: - Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Pingere si velit; et varias inducere plumas, Undique collatis Inembris; ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne; Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici? DE ART. POET., V. 1. "Suppose a painter to a human head Should join a horse's neck; and wildly spread The various plumage of the feather'd kind O'er limbs of different beasts, absurdly join'd; Or if he gave to view a beauteous maid, Above the waist with every charm array'd, Should a foul fish her lower parts infold, Would you not smile such pictures to behold?" FRANCIS.

23. a great sacrifice unto Dagon] at Gaza, as the context suggests (Judges 16:21). Dagon was the god specially honoured by the Philistines; he had a temple at Ashdod (1 Samuel 5:2-7, 1Ma 10:83 f., Judges 11:4) and elsewhere; there was a Beth-dagon in the Shephηlah (Joshua 15:41? = Beit-dejan 6 m. S.E. of Joppa, or Dejan 1½ m. further south1[57]) and on the boundary of Asher (Joshua 19:27). But the name also occurs outside the territory once held by the Philistines; it survives in Beit-dejan 7 m. E. of Nβblus; and we may infer that the worship of Dagon was not confined to the Philistines. Most likely he was a Canaanite god adopted by the Philistines when they settled in the country, just as they adopted Ashtoreth (1 Samuel 31:10). The name of the Canaanite letter-writer Dagan-takala in the Amarna tablets (Nos. 215, 216) carries us back to the age when Babylonian influences prevailed in Canaan; and Dagan is met with as the name of a deity from the early Babylonian down to the Assyrian period, both in proper names and in conjunction with Anu; the latter fact points to a god of heaven. But whether he was a native Babylonian god is not certain; it seems probable that he was introduced from outside, perhaps from Canaan; most authorities identify him with the Philistine Dagon2[58]. Of his nature nothing definite is known. Philo of Byblus derives the name from dβgβn = corn, and regards him as an agricultural deity; Ḳ ?imḥ ?i (xiiith century a.d.) in his commentary on 1 Samuel 5:4 mentions a tradition that Dagon’s image was shaped as a man above the waist and a fish below (dβg = fish). These, however, are only etymological guesses. It may be questioned whether the god, half man and half fish, represented on the coins of Ascalon and Arvad, was intended for Dagon3[59]. [57] One of these was probably the Bit-daganna mentioned in the Prism Inscr. of Sennacherib, KB. ii. 93. [58] See Dhorme, La Rel. Assyro-Babylonienne (1910), 17, 35, 165; Zimmern, KAT.3, 358. [59] As Lagrange considers, Ιt. sur les Rel. Sιmitiques2, 131 f. for they said … our hand] looks like a gloss founded on the song in the verse which follows.

Dagon was the national idol of the Philistines 1 Chronicles 10:10, so called from Dag, a fish.

23. Dagon their god — The name is derived from the Hebrew ãâ, dag, a fish, and the diminutive ending on with the sense of endearment — “dear little fish,” (Gesenius.) According to Kimchi and most