Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 6:4
Then said they, What [shall be] the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, [according to] the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague [was] on you all, and on your lords.
4. emerods ] Or, boils. See note on ch. 1Sa 5:6.
according to the number of the lords of the Philistines ] The number of the confederate cities was naturally chosen to represent the whole people.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
It was a prevalent custom in pagan antiquity to make offerings to the gods expressive of the particular mercy received. Thus, those saved from shipwreck offered pictures of the shipwreck, etc., and the custom still exists among Christians in certain countries.
The plague of the mice is analogous to that of the frogs in Egypt. The destructive power of field-mice was very great.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Sa 6:4
What shall be the trespass offering?
Offerings to the gods
The idea of presenting offerings to the gods corresponding with the object in connection with which they were presented was often given effect to by heathen nations. Those saved from shipwreck offered pictures of the shipwreck, or of the clothes which they had on at the time, in the Temple of Isis; slaves and captives, in gratitude for the recovery of their liberty, offered chains to the Lares, retired gladiators, their arms to Hercules; and in the fifth century a custom prevailed among Christians of offering in their churches gold or silver hands, feet, eyes, etc., in return for cures effected in those members respectively in answer to prayer. This was probably a heathen custom transferred into the Christian Church, for a similar usage is still found among the heathen in India. (Speakers Commentary.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. Five golden emerods, and five golden mice] One for each satrapy. The emerods had afflicted their bodies; the mice had marred their land. Both, they considered, as sent by God; and, making an image of each, and sending them as a trespass-offering, they acknowledged this. See at the end.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
What shall be the trespass-offering? they desire particular information, because they were ignorant of the nature and manner of the worship of Israels God, and they might easily understand that there were some kinds of offerings which God would not accept.
Golden emerods, i.e. figures of that part of the body which was the seat of the disease, which by its swelling, or some other way, represented also the disease itself; which they offered not in contempt of God, for they sought to gain his favour hereby; but in testimony of their humiliation, that by leaving this monument of their own shame and misery they might obtain pity from God, and freedom from their disease.
Golden mice; which marred their land, (as it. is related, 1Sa 6:5) by destroying the fruits thereof; as the other plague afflicted their bodies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Five golden emerodsVotiveor thank offerings were commonly made by the heathen in prayer for,or gratitude after, deliverance from lingering or dangerousdisorders, in the form of metallic (generally silver) models orimages of the diseased parts of the body. This is common still inRoman Catholic countries, as well as in the temples of the Hindus andother modern heathen.
five golden miceThisanimal is supposed by some to be the jerboa or jumping mouse of Syriaand Egypt [BOCHART]; byothers, to be the short-tailed field mouse, which often swarms inprodigious numbers and commits great ravages in the cultivated fieldsof Palestine.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then said they, what shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him?…. They paid a great deference to their priests and diviners, and were willing to be directed in all things by them; being ignorant of what was most proper in this case, and might be acceptable to the God of Israel:
they answered, five golden emerods, and five golden mice; images of these made of gold, as appears from the next verse; the reason of the former is easy, from the above account of the disease they were afflicted with; but of the latter no hint is given before: indeed in the Vulgate Latin and Septuagint versions of 1Sa 5:6 is inserted a clause, that
“mice sprung up in the midst of their country;”
which is not in the Hebrew text, nor in the Chaldee paraphrase; yet appears to be a fact from the following verse, that at the same time their bodies were smitten with emerods, their fields were overrun with mice, which destroyed the increase of them; wherefore five golden mice were also ordered as a part of the trespass offering, and five of each were pitched upon:
according to the number of the lords of the Philistines; who were five, and so the principalities under them; see Jos 13:3
for one plague was on you all, and on your lords; the lords and common people were equally smitten with the emerods, and the several principalities were alike distressed and destroyed with the mice; and therefore the trespass offering, which was a vicarious one for them, was to be according to the number of their princes and their principalities; five emerods for the five princes and their people smitten with emerods, and five mice on account of the five cities and fields adjacent being marred by mice.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The trespass-offering was to correspond to the number of the princes of the Philistines. is an accusative employed to determine either measure or number (see Ewald, 204, a.), lit., “ the number of their princes:” the compensations were to be the same in number as the princes. “ Five golden boils, and five golden mice,” i.e., according to 1Sa 6:5, images resembling their boils, and the field-mice which overran the land; the same gifts, therefore, for them all, “ for one plague is to all and to your princes,” i.e., the same plague has fallen upon all the people and their princes. The change of person in the two words, , “ all of them,” i.e., the whole nation of the Philistines, and , “ your princes,” appears very strange to us with our modes of thought and speech, but it is by no means unusual in Hebrew. The selection of this peculiar kind of expiatory present was quite in accordance with a custom, which was not only widely spread among the heathen but was even adopted in the Christian church, viz., that after recovery from an illness, or rescue from any danger or calamity, a representation of the member healed or the danger passed through was placed as an offering in the temple of the deity, to whom the person had prayed for deliverance;
(Note: Thus, after a shipwreck, any who escaped presented a tablet to Isis, or Neptune, with the representation of a shipwreck upon it; gladiators offered their weapons, and emancipated slaves their fetters. In some of the nations of antiquity even representations of the private parts, in which a cure had been obtained from the deity, were hung up in the temples in honour of the gods (see Schol. ad Aristoph. Acharn. 243, and other proofs in Winer’s Real-wrterbuch, ii. p. 255). Theodoret says, concerning the Christians of the fourth century ( Therapeutik. Disp. viii.): , , , , . , . , . And at Rome they still hang up a picture of the danger, from which deliverance had been obtained after a vow, in the church of the saint invoked in the danger.)
and it also perfectly agrees with a custom which has prevailed in India, according to Tavernier (Ros. A. u. N. Morgenland iii. p. 77), from time immemorial down to the present day, viz., that when a pilgrim takes a journey to a pagoda to be cured of a disease, he offers to the idol a present either in gold, silver, or copper, according to his ability, of the shape of the diseased or injured member, and then sings a hymn. Such a present passed as a practical acknowledgement that the god had inflicted the suffering or evil. If offered after recovery or deliverance, it was a public expression of thanksgiving. In the case before us, however, in which it was offered before deliverance, the presentation of the images of the things with which they had been chastised was probably a kind of fine or compensation for the fault that had been committed against the Deity, to mitigate His wrath and obtain a deliverance from the evils with which they had been smitten. This is contained in the words, “Give glory unto the God of Israel! peradventure He will lighten His (punishing) hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.” The expression is a pregnant one for “make His heavy hand light and withdraw it,” i.e., take away the punishment. In the allusion to the representations of the field-mice, the words “that devastate the land” are added, because in the description given of the plagues in 1Sa 5:1-12 the devastation of the land by mice is not expressly mentioned. The introduction of this clause after , when contrasted with the omission of any such explanation after , is a proof that the plague of mice had not been described before, and therefore that the references made to these in the Septuagint at 1Sa 5:3, 1Sa 5:6, and 1Sa 6:1, are nothing more than explanatory glosses. It is a well-known fact that field-mice, with their enormous rate of increase and their great voracity, do extraordinary damage to the fields. In southern lands they sometimes destroy entire harvests in a very short space of time (Aristot. Animal. vi. 37; Plin. h. n. x. c. 65; Strabo, iii. p. 165; Aelian, etc., in Bochart, Hieroz. ii. p. 429, ed. Ros.).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(4) Five golden emerods, and five golden mice.It was a general custom in the nations of antiquity to offer to the deity, to whom sickness or recovery from sickness was ascribed, likenesses of the diseased parts; so, too, those who had escaped from shipwreck would offer pictures, or perhaps their garments, to Neptune, or, as some tell us, to Isis. (See, for instance, Horace, Carm. i. 5.) Slaves and gladiators would present their arms to Hercules; captives would dedicate their chains to some deity. This practice has found favour in more modern times. In the fifth century ChristiansTheodoret tells uswould often offer in their churches gold or silver hands and feet, or eyes, as a thank-offering for cures effected in reply to prayer. Similar votive offerings are still made in Roman Catholic countries.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Five golden emerods, and five golden mice Perhaps these Philistine soothsayers had heard the history of the brazen serpent, (Num 21:4-9,) and therefore supposed that the wrath of Israel’s God might be appeased by talismans. At all events, it was a common custom among the heathen nations of antiquity to make use of such talismanic offerings as a preservative against evil. Apollonius of Tyana is said to have made a brazen scorpion and set it on a pillar in the city of Antioch. whereupon the scorpions of that country all vanished. See many examples given in Kitto’s “Daily Bible Illustrations.” Had the ark remained in their own country, these talismans would, of course, have been set up in their midst; but when the ark was sent away, they deemed it most proper to send them along with it into its own land. The annexed cut is a picture of a Greek votive tablet in the British Museum. It is thought to present the lower part of the face of a woman who, healed of an affection of the nose or mouth, had caused this tablet to be placed in the temple of some god in token of her gratitude for her healing.
According to the number of the lords One golden mouse and one golden boil for each of the five confederate cities, and golden mice for other cities besides these. See 1Sa 6:17-18.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Sa 6:4 Then said they, What [shall be] the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, [according to] the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague [was] on you all, and on your lords.
Ver. 4. Five golden emerods, and five golden mice. ] All these things were not only superstitious, but ridiculous: suggested, as some conceive, by Satan to the diviners, in contempt of God; but they were turned by an overruling providence to his great glory. He sent the Philistines mice and emerods of flesh and blood; they return him both these in gold: to imply, saith one, a both that these judgments came out from God, and that they did gladly give him the glory of that whereof he gave them pain and sorrow: and that they would willingly buy off their pain with the best of their substance.
a Dr Hall.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
emerods. See note on 1Sa 5:6,: i.e. models of them in gold; of which, modern “votive offerings “are the lineal descendants. Compare 1Sa 6:5.
lords. See note on Jos 13:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Five golden: 1Sa 6:5, 1Sa 6:17, 1Sa 6:18, 1Sa 5:6, 1Sa 5:9, Exo 12:35, Jos 13:3, Jdg 3:3
you all: Heb. them
Reciprocal: Exo 11:1 – Yet will 1Sa 6:8 – jewels 1Sa 6:16 – the five 1Sa 29:2 – the lords Psa 78:66 – And he Psa 107:40 – contempt Isa 44:11 – all his
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE TALISMANS
Five golden emerods, and five golden mice.
1Sa 6:4
Instead of reading, Ye shall make images of your emerods and images of your mice, we ought to read, Ye shall make talismans of your emerods and talismans of your mice. We get the word talisman from the Arabic. The original meaning of the word is doubtful; but the Greeks understood it to denote certain magical characters which were supposed to carry a supernatural force, in short, what we call a charm.
I. What did the diviners of Philistia mean by the golden mice and emerods?In what way were these images to relieve their bodies from disease and their fields from the swarming mice? It is the answer to this question which yields us a clue to many dark and involved Scriptures.
At first we might think that these golden images were meant simply to express their recognition of the power of that God whose seat was the ark. No doubt they had this meaning. They were a confession that the emerods and mice came from Him, that they were signs of His power and anger; they were a confession that the Philistines had done wrong to offer violence to the ark of His strength. But this is only a partial answer to our question. It would have been more natural to any but diviners simply to offer the usual beasts as a sacrifice or trespass offering to the offended god. Why did they rather make tiny golden images? What divination was there in these? What did the diviners, or magicians, mean by them?
The real and full answer to this question comes from the astrological systems of antiquity. Up to about three hundred years ago all men, or almost all, European no less than Asiatic, believed that the stars had a strange mystic influence on the health, fortunes, and destiny of men, cities, kingdoms. They set themselves to read and interpret the heavens; to reduce their interpretations to a science, a system, that they might not only tell, but affect the fortunes of men.
II. I am not prepared to admit that the wise men of antiquity were such fools as they are often held to have been, nor such rogues.I cannot bring myself to believe that they wittingly palmed obvious and monstrous delusions upon their fellows, that they pretented to powers which they knew they did not possess. I should be no whit surprised if science were yet to discover new secrets in the sky, new harmonies between heaven and earth. It may be that as the old Greek historians, whom our fathers set down as credulous setters forth of fables, are now proved to have been accurate and learned chroniclers; so also the diviners and astrologers, whose science we reject as mere imposture, will yet justify themselves and help our sons to a wider scientific knowledge than we have reached.
But whatever influences and predictions are, or are not, in the stars, whatever occult and mysterious harmonies of earth with heaven have yet to be discovered, our principal concern is to know that God worketh all things; that it is He who brings forth the constellations in their seasonHe who has set ordinances in heaven, and determined their influences upon the earthHe, the Doer of great things past finding out, and wonders that cannot be numbered. He may shape our destinies and predict them by the celestial signs, just as He may administer His providence by the angels who excel in strength, and wait to do His will. These are questions which we may discuss, and on which we may differ.
III. The one question we need to have settled beyond all doubt is, that, whether by subordinate ministers or without them, it is He who shapes our lot and guides our feet; that however many servants He may or may not employ, we are still and always in His hands. If He is our Father, and our reconciled Father, if He loves us and cares for us, it is enough; for if not a sparrow can fall to the ground without our Father, how, without Him, should a star have any influence over us, whether adverse or benign? If He is our Father, and in His minute, tender care of us numbers the very hairs of our heads, how should any angel, be its intents wicked or charitable, be other to us than a spirit of health, a minister of grace? The universe may be more complex and concordant than we suppose, heaven and earth may be more full of august and solemn ministries; between the mighty music of the spheres and the rhythms of human life there may be antiphonies, echoes, responses, too subtle or too vast for our ears to grasp; but so long as the universe is His, and all its innumerable hosts do His will, we may at all times hear the sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well,
God is with us and in us; and His presence is the true talisman. Trusting in this, we are secure in all perils and all vicissitudes. If He make us sore, He will bind up; if He bruise, His hands will make whole. In six troubles He will deliver us, nor in seven shall evil touch us. So that He be with us and for us, we may laugh at ravage and famine, at change and death; for then even the stones of the field will be in league with us and the stars in their courses will fight on our behalf. If we love Him, nothing can in anywise harm us, for nothing can separate us from His love. In Him all things are ourslife and death, heaven and earththings present and things to come.
Illustration
Sin brings sorrow. So was it with Israel long ago. The tyranny of the Philistines and the exile of the ark, these were the bitter harvests of the peoples transgressions. So is it with me to-day. After I sin, there follows a mist and a weeping rain, and life is never the same again. In my outer history or my inner history, in others who are influenced by me, I reap a dreary wage. Ah, they are wisest who are simple concerning evil. But sorrow should lead on to penitence. It should bend and break my heart. It should kindle again my desires after God. And penitence brings God near once more, in grace, in blessing, in peace.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Sa 6:4. Five golden emerods Figures in gold representing the disease. Five golden mice Images of the mice which had marred their land by destroying its fruits. According to the number of the lords of the Philistines Who were five, and were to be at the charge of offering one for each of them. These things they offered, not in contempt of God, for they sought to gain his favour hereby; but in testimony of their humiliation, that, by leaving this monument of their shame and misery, they might obtain pity from God. It may be observed here, that it appears to have been a custom among the ancient heathen, to consecrate unto their gods such monuments of their deliverances as represented the evils from which they were freed. So the Philistines did on this occasion. And, according to Tavernier, this is still practised among the Indians. When any pilgrim goes to a pagod for the cure of a disease, he brings the figure of the member affected; made either of gold, silver, or copper, according to his quality; which he offers to his god, and then falls a singing, as all others do after they have offered. See Travels, page 92.