I Shmuel 5: Hemorrhoids of the Lost Ark

Chapters five and six are odd chapters. The main character is not a person. It is the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines capture the Ark and place it in the temple of Dagon. Maybe this is the same temple that Shimshon destroyed. Each morning, the great statue of Dagon (a fish god- from the Hebrew word dag, or a god of the harvest from the Hebrew word- dagan) is damaged. The Philistines then move the Ark to another town where everyone is inflicted with hemorrhoids or rats or both. The text itself has a written and read mix. The written word is afelim and the read word is trachim. Rashi explains that the word is related to rats. When the Philistines were using the restroom, rats would crawl into their butts and damage their bowels. Radak explains that this was a plague that caused constipation due to inflammation inside the body. Chizkuni explains that these were an internal disease that could not be cured by normal medical means. Why were they punished with hemorrhoids? The only other time this word appears outside this story is in the tochecha in Deuteronomy. “God will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover” (יַכְּכָה ה׳ בִּשְׁחִין מִצְרַיִם וּבַטְּחֹרִים וּבַגָּרָב וּבֶחָרֶס אֲשֶׁר לֹא־תוּכַל לְהֵרָפֵא) (Deuteronomy 28:27). The list includes different types of boils and skin inflammation with the most famous the Egyptian kind from the plagues. Hemorrhoids are connected to these boils as they are an internal inflammation. Perhaps this verse offers two explanations for this punishment. The first is that God wanted to inflict the Philistines for something that would match what they were doing. The Philistines took that Ark and tried to keep it inside their holy places away from Israelites in a place that they thought was difficult to get to. In response, God afflicts them inside their bodies in a place that is difficult to get to. The other possibility has to do with a concern the Philistines expressed in chapter 4: “’Woe to us! Who will save us from the power of this mighty God? He is the same God who struck the Egyptians with every kind of plague in the wilderness!’” (אוֹי לָנוּ מִי יַצִּילֵנוּ מִיַּד הָאֱלֹהִים הָאַדִּירִים הָאֵלֶּה אֵלֶּה הֵם הָאֱלֹהִים הַמַּכִּים אֶת־מִצְרַיִם בְּכָל־מַכָּה בַּמִּדְבָּר) (4:8). There, the Philistines feared God when the Ark was brought to battle. Now that they captured it, they thought they had defeated and captured the God of the Israelites. In return, God punished them like the Egyptians. “For that night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt, both human and beast; and I will mete out punishments to all the gods of Egypt.” (וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ־מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה וְהִכֵּיתִי כָל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד־בְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל־אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים אֲנִי ה׳) (Exodus 12:12). God “attacks” the gods of the Philistines in the beginning of the chapter, and then attacks the Philistines themselves with the internal boils of Egypt referenced in Deuteronomy. The message is clear, God is not an idol that can be “captured”. He can strike down the enemies of Israel no matter the circumstance.