What Does 1 Samuel 5:2 Mean?
And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it beside Dagon.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon.THE KEY
The captors think they are displaying a trophy, but the verb says they have caused the ark to arrive inside Dagon’s own house.
THE MEANING
You see a claim of dominance being staged: the ark is brought into Dagon’s house and placed beside him as though the two can share equal standing. The arrangement already holds its reversal, because the next verse shows Dagon face down before the ark.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that taking a sacred sign into your possession gives you mastery over the presence it signifies.
THE ROOT
וַיָּבִיאוּ
vayyavi'u
GROWS FROM
בוא
bo'
To come or enter; in the causative form, to cause to come, bring, or lead in.
“brought” in this verse is vayyavi'u. The same root holds both “come” and “bring”: English separates the arrival from the act of carrying. The Philistines mean to display captured property, yet the Hebrew also says they have caused the ark to come into Dagon’s own house.
ALSO GROWS
bo': To come or enter.
בּוֹא
This is the root’s basic movement: the ark comes into Dagon’s house beneath the English wording “they brought it.”
hevi': To bring or cause something to arrive.
הֵבִיא
This causative form shows the Philistines making the ark enter the rival god’s own dwelling.
mavo: An entrance or coming in.
מָבוֹא
The related noun preserves the same movement into a place, drawing attention to the ark’s arrival inside Dagon’s house.
THE PATTERN
A rival claim to divine standing collapses when brought face to face with the LORD’s presence.
And when the men of Ashdod rose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon lay fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and returned him to his place.They kneel, they kneel together; they cannot slip the load free, and they themselves go into captivity.Let all who serve carved images be shamed, all who boast in worthless things; bow down to him, all you gods.THE THREAD
And when the men of Ashdod rose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon lay fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and returned him to his place.The placement meant to honor Dagon is reversed by morning: he lies face down before the ark. What the Philistines bring in as spoil becomes the presence before which their god falls.
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