Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 5:2

"And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon." — 1 Samuel 5:2 (ASV)

They brought it into the house of Dagon. —The conquerors, we are told, in the meantime, with triumph, carried the captured Ark from the battlefield to Ashdod. This was one of the capital cities of the five Philistine princes. It is built on a hill close to the Mediterranean Sea, and was in later days known as Azotus (Acts 8:40).

In Ashdod they placed it in the temple of the popular Philistine god, Dagon. This was their vengeance for the slaughter of the 3,000 Philistine worshippers in the temple of the same deity at Gaza, not many years before, by the blind Hebrew champion Samson.

The princes and Philistine people well remembered how the blind hero, on that awful day, called on the name of the God of Israel. This was when 3,000 perished in the house of Dagon as he, with his superhuman strength, forced the great temple pillars down. In their idol-trained hearts, they associated this God with the golden Ark.

“This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With me has ended, all the contest now
Between God and Dagon; Dagon has presumed,
Me overthrown, to enter lists with God,
His deity comparing and preferring
Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure,
Will not connive or linger thus provoked,
But will arise, and His great name assert.”—MILTON.

The insulted Dagon and all their murdered countrymen should be avenged by the perpetual humiliation of the “God of Abraham.”

The sacred Ark should from now on be placed at the feet of their god Dagon.