John Gill Commentary 1 Samuel 5:12

"And the men that died not were smitten with the tumors; and the cry of the city went up to heaven." — 1 Samuel 5:12 (ASV)

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 ^F2 , 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 105.