1 Samuel 5:5

Hebrew Bible

3 When the residents of Ashdod got up early the next day, Dagon was lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him back in his place. 4 But when they got up early the following day, Dagon was again lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and his two hands were sheared off and were lying at the threshold. Only Dagon’s body was left intact. 5 (For this reason, to this very day, neither Dagon’s priests nor anyone else who enters Dagon’s temple steps on Dagon’s threshold in Ashdod.) 6 The Lord attacked the residents of Ashdod severely, bringing devastation on them. He struck the people of both Ashdod and the surrounding area with sores. 7 When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel should not remain with us, for he has attacked both us and our god Dagon!”

Zephaniah 1:9

Hebrew Bible

7 Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the Lord’s day of judgment is almost here. The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; he has ritually purified his guests. 8 “On the day of the Lord’s sacrificial meal, I will punish the princes and the king’s sons, and all who wear foreign styles of clothing. 9 On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold, who fill the house of their master with wealth taken by violence and deceit. 10 On that day,” says the Lord,“a loud cry will go up from the Fish Gate, wailing from the city’s newer district, and a loud crash from the hills. 11 Wail, you who live in the market district, for all the merchants will disappear and those who count money will be removed.

 Notes and References

"... The first reference to a cherub in the book of Ezekiel occurs in the middle of the prophet’s vision of Yahweh abandoning his temple (Ezekiel 8:1–11:25) in Ezekiel 9:3 ... The verse can be translated provisionally as follows: “And the glory of the god of Israel went up from upon the cherub, upon which it had been, to the miphtan of the house.” (This is usually translated “threshold”. Zimmerli has highlighted the use of the noun in 1 Samuel 5:4. In this passage, the head and hands of the Philistine god, Dagon, are found near the miphtan. This has caused Zimmerli to argue that the miphtan must refer to an entrance in the inner part of the temple and postulates that the term refers to the podium for the image of the deity. However, the taboo of treading on the miphtan of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:5 - also see Zephaniah 1:9–10 - does indicate that it was close to the ground. There is a possible parallel between the miphtan and the gate of Dagon in Zephaniah 1:9–10, which does suggest that it was the threshold to the sanctuary. The term has been left transliterated) ..."

Wood, Alice Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim (p. 95) De Gruyter, 2008

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