Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 5:6

"But the hand of Jehovah was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with tumors, even Ashdod and the borders thereof." — 1 Samuel 5:6 (ASV)

But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod. A painful and distressing sickness, perhaps in the form of tumors (the word emerods should be spelled hemorrhoids), broke out among the inhabitants of the Philistine city where the idol temple was situated and where the Ark of the Covenant had been placed.

The Septuagint includes an addition to the Hebrew text here that speaks of a terrible land plague. Apparently, from subsequent accounts, this plague afflicted Philistia in addition to the physical sufferings mentioned here.

The Greek Version adds these words to 1 Samuel 5:6: and mice were produced in the land, and there arose a great and deadly confusion in the city. In 1 Samuel 6:4 and following, among the expiatory offerings sent by the idolaters to Israel to appease what they imagined to be the offended Hebrew God, golden mice are mentioned: images of the mice that mar the land.

The mouse, according to Herodotus and the testimony of hieroglyphics, was an ancient symbol of pestilence. The Greek translators, however, failing to understand the meaning of the offering of golden mice, added these words—apparently in accordance with a received tradition—as an explanation.