Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.
12. the cry of the city went up to heaven ] Cp. Exo 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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1Sa 5:12
The cry of the city.
The cry of the city
There is a hum of the city in its ceaseless activity, a shout in its occasional excitement, a song in its periodic mirth, but a cry in its constant want, distress, pain. Paul heard it at Athens and his heart was stirred; Jesus at Jerusalem and He wept. Do we not hear it in every city, and is not the cry somewhat thus?
I.
I am sensitive and might be touched with truth and love.
II.–I am restless and so always seeking some unattained good.
III.–I am strong and might be powerful for God and humanity.
IV.–I am sinful and must have religion or ruin. Does anyone fail to hear these cries, let him listen to The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, or gaze sadly at Horrible London, or pendent The Politics of the very Poor. (Homilist.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. The men that died not] Some it seems were smitten with instant death; others with the haemorrhoids, and there was a universal consternation; and the cry of the city went up to heaven-it was an exceeding great cry.
IT does not appear that the Philistines had any correct knowledge of the nature of Jehovah, though they seemed to acknowledge his supremacy. They imagined that every country, district, mountain, and valley, had its peculiar deity; who, in its place, was supreme over all others. They thought therefore to appease Jehovah by sending him back his ark or shrine: and, in order to be redeemed from their plagues, they send golden mice and emerods as telesms, probably made under some particular configurations of the planets. 1Sa 6:21.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The men that died not; either of some other plague or ulcer, as may be thought from 1Sa 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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. the cry of the city went up toheavenThe disease is attended with acute pain, and it is farfrom being a rare phenomenon in the Philistian plain [VANDE VELDE].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1Sa 5:12. And the men that died not, &c. The doctrine of intercommunity led the heathens into the custom of changing one tutelary deity for another; but the God of the Israelites had an absolute abhorrence of all community or alliance with the gods of the Gentiles: and the present instance of his power has set this opinion beyond all contradiction. When the Philistines had taken the ark from the Israelites in battle, and carried it as another palladium to Ashdod, they placed it in the temple of their god Dagon, which was in consequence of their doctrine of intercommunity; but their deity passed two such bad nights with his new guest, that on the second morning he was found pared away to his stump; and this disaster was followed by a desolating pestilence. The people of Ashdod, who hitherto had intended to keep the ark as one of their idol protectors, now declared that it should not abide with them, for that the hand of the God of Israel was sore upon them, and upon Dagon their God. They sent it therefore to Gath, another of their cities, and there having carried it about in a religious procession, it made the same havoc among them. It was then removed a third time, with an intent to send it to Ekron; but the men of that city, terrified by the two preceding calamities, refused to receive it, saying, they had brought the ark of the Gad of Israel to slay them and their people. At length the Philistines were brought by sad experience to understand, that it was the best course to send it back to its owners; which they did with great honour, with gifts and trespass-offerings to appease the offended divinity. And from this time we hear no more of any attempts of the Gentile nations to join the Jewish worship to their own; but they considered the God of Israel as a tutelary deity absolutely unsociable, who would have nothing to do with any but that people, or with such particular people as would worship him alone; and therefore, in this respect, different from all the other tutelary gods, each of which was willing to live in community with all the rest. Div. Leg. vol. 4: p. 54.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
REFLECTIONS
How very precious it is to observe, the attention which God hath over his own cause. Though Israel is sunk so low as to be supine and inattentive to the attempt of recovering the ark, yet God will be jealous of his own honor. Reader! do you not see a sweet instruction veiled under this? When the poor sinner bound in Satan’s chain is fallen asleep, and is unconscious of his impending ruin; neither sends forth a cry for help; nor is aware that he needeth that help; then it is that the eye of Jesus is upon him, undertakes himself his cause, and goeth forth to his deliverance. Oh! blessed Jesus, how very precious is it to my soul to observe that thy grace, like the dew of Heaven, waiteth not for men, neither tarrieth for the sons of men.
And here also while poor dispirited sinners are thus taught that our God will maintain his own cause and deliver his people out of captivity; woe unto the oppressor, when our God ariseth to judgment! Secret punishments will be their lot in this life, and an open display of his anger in that which is to come. The wrath of man shall praise him, the remainder of wrath will he restrain.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Sa 5:12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
Ver. 12. And the men that died not were smitten, &c. ] All that were smitten with emerods died not here, as they had done at the other cities, quod petiverant ut arca restitueretur, a because they had desired that the ark might be restored.
a Piscator.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
died: 1Ki 19:17, Amo 5:19
the cry: 1Sa 9:16, Exo 12:30, Isa 15:3-5, Jer 14:2, Jer 25:34, Jer 48:3
Reciprocal: Gen 20:17 – General Deu 28:27 – emerods Jer 46:12 – thy cry