Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
And the lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to make a great offering to Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they said, Our god has given into our hands Samson our hater.
Then the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
The lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, "Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand."
And the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
Unto Dagon their god - Diodorus Siculus describes their god thus:
Το μεν προσωπον εχει γυναικος, το δ' αλλο σωμα παν ιχθους;
"It had the head of a woman, but all the rest of the body resembled a fish."
Dagon was called Dorceto among the heathens. Horace, in the following lines, especially in the third and fourth, seems to have in view the image of Dagon: -
Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Pingere si velit; et varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis Inembris; ut turpiter atrum
Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne;
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici?
De Art. Poet., V. 1.
"Suppose a painter to a human head
Should join a horse's neck; and wildly spread
The various plumage of the feather'd kind
O'er limbs of different beasts, absurdly join'd;
continued...
Dagon was the national idol of the Philistines 1 Chronicles 10:10, so called from Dag, a fish. The description of Dagon, in his temple at Ashdod 1 Samuel 5:4, exactly agrees with the representations of a fish-god on the walls of Khorsabad, on slabs at Kouyunjik, and on sundry antique cylinders and gems. In these the figures vary. Some have a human form down to the waist, with that of a fish below the waist; others have a human head, arms, and legs, growing, as it were, out of a fish's body, and so arranged that the fish's head forms a kind of mitre to the man's head, while the body and fins form a kind of cloak, hanging down behind.
16:23 Dagon - An idol, whose upper part was like a man, and whose lower part was like a fish: probably one of the sea - gods of the Heathens.