What Does 1 Samuel 5:7 Mean in the King James?
And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same hand bears on Ashdod and Dagon, so the god they call theirs cannot shield himself from the force they fear.
THE MEANING
You see the pressure reach both the people and the power they call their own. The men recognize that neither they nor Dagon stand apart from the hand upon them, and they cannot keep the ark among them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that calling a power “ours” makes it able to shield us: Dagon is named under the same hand as the men.
THE ROOT
קָשְׁתָה
qāšĕtāh
GROWS FROM
קשה
q-sh-h
To be hard, severe, or difficult.
“sore” in this verse is qāšĕtāh. The Hebrew form describes the hand as hard or severe, carrying the sense of force bearing down on both the people and Dagon. This root also forms language for hardening, placing pressure and resistance within the same word-family.
ALSO GROWS
qāšeh: Hard, severe, difficult.
קָשֶׁה
This adjective shares the root’s sense of severity, illuminating the weight of the hand described here.
aqsheh: I will harden; I will make hard.
אַקְשֶׁה
The same root names hardening in Exodus 7:3, linking the pressure felt here with the force that meets resistance.
THE PATTERN
A rival god’s claim to power is exposed when it cannot withstand or answer the living God’s action.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:THE THREAD
Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.The same Hebrew word for “hand” appears again as the speakers ask for it to be lightened from them, their gods, and their land. That repeated image makes their recognition plain: the hand they feel reaches Dagon as well as themselves.
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