1-Samuel - 5:12



12 The men who didn't die were struck with the tumors; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of 1-Samuel 5:12.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
And the men that died not were smitten with the tumors; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
For there was the fear of death in every city, and the hand of God was exceeding heavy. The men also that did not die, were afflicted with the emerods: and the cry of every city went up to heaven.
and the men that died not were smitten with the hemorrhoids; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
And the men that died not were smitten with the tumours: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
And the men that died not, were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
and the men who have not died have been smitten with emerods, and the cry of the city goeth up into the heavens.
And those men who were not overtaken by death were cruelly diseased: and the cry of the town went up to heaven.
For the fear of death fell upon every single city, and the hand of God was very heavy. Also, the men who did not die were being afflicted in the inner part of the buttocks. And the wailing of each city was ascending to heaven.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

The men that died not - Some it seems were smitten with instant death; others with the haemorrhoids, and there was a universal consternation; and the cry of the city went up to heaven - it was an exceeding great cry.
It does not appear that the Philistines had any correct knowledge of the nature of Jehovah, though they seemed to acknowledge his supremacy. They imagined that every country, district, mountain, and valley, had its peculiar deity; who, in its place, was supreme over all others. They thought therefore to appease Jehovah by sending him back his ark or shrine: and, in order to be redeemed from their plagues, they send golden mice and emerods as telesms, probably made under some particular configurations of the planets. See at the end of 1-Samuel 6:21 (note).

And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods,.... As the inhabitants of Ashdod and Gath had been; this shows that those that died did not die of that disease, but of some other; very likely the pestilence:
and the cry of the city went up to heaven; not that it was heard and regarded there, but the phrase is used to denote the greatness of it, how exceeding loud and clamorous it was; partly on the account of the death of so many of the inhabitants, their relations and friends; and partly because of the intolerable pain they endured through the emerods. There is something of this history preserved in a story wrongly told by Herodotus (b), who relates that the Scythians returning from Egypt passed through Ashkelon, a city of Syria (one of the five principalities of the Philistines), and that some of them robbed the temple of Venus there; for which the goddess sent on them and their posterity the disease of emerods, and that the Scythians themselves acknowledged that they were troubled with it on that account.
(b) Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 105.

the cry of the city went up to heaven--The disease is attended with acute pain, and it is far from being a rare phenomenon in the Philistian plain [VAN DE VELDE].

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