The Philistines had a problem when they captured the ark of God from the Israelites. The Israelites had a problem when they were slaughtered by the Philistines, lost the ark of God and the high priest and his two sons all in one day. So terrible was this day that the wife of one of Eli’s sons gave birth and named the child Ichabod – the glory of God is departed from Israel.
In this tragic day, God still was going to use the capture of the ark for His glory. Upon returning to their city, Ashdod, the Philistines placed the ark in the temple of Dagon, their god, right next to his statue. The next morning, however, the statue of Dagon was discovered to be on its face in front of the ark of God.
Not to be put off by this, the Philistines hoisted Dagon’s statue off the ground and put him back in his place. But God would not be trifled with in this matter; He was God and there was no other beside Him. Dagon’s head and hands were found on the threshold of his temple, only the stump of his body was left behind.
The resulting terror on the priests of Dagon and the inhabitants of Ashdod was so great that the Bible tells us no one ever went into the temple of Dagon again; not so much as even setting foot on the threshold from that day forward.
God wasn’t finished yet and He punished the Philistines for taking His ark from the Israelites with a unique plague – hemorrhoids. The men of Ashdod, in complete agony, sent the ark to Gath, knowing it couldn’t stay with them. Guess what? The men of Gath got hit with hemorrhoids as well and they passed the ark along to Ekron. The inhabitants of Ekron were a little more savvy and said no way was that ark coming to stay with them. Nevertheless, because the ark was there, God destroyed a huge portion of the men and those who didn’t die probably wished they had – they got hemorrhoids.
Eventually, the ark made it back to the Israelites, where more people died because they decided to look in the ark.
The story of Dagon falling down at the presence of God’s ark reminded me of a couple verses from the New Testament. When Jesus was about to enter Jerusalem before Passover, someone mentioned to him that he should stop the people from praising him and laying down palm branches. His response was that if the people would be stopped, the very stones themselves would cry out.
Our God is a powerful God and before Him every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that He is Lord… even those made of stone.
