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Chapter 5 tells of the terrible plagues that befell the Philistines everywhere that they took the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines, in defeating the Israelites in the second battle of Ebenezer (a short distance north of Bethel) as recorded in Chapter 4, took the Ark and transported it to the Philistine city of Ashdod and placed it in the Temple to their pagan god Dagon. This caused the Lord to bring a series of plagues upon the Philistines.
The next morning when the Philistines went into their Temple they found their god Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the Covenant. They set him up only to find the next morning that he had fallen again, this time his head and hands were broken off and laying on the threshold of the door to the Temple. The author says, "To this day, neither the priests nor the worshippers will step upon the threshold of the Temple." This was a superstition in Israel for centuries. Zephaniah, in 640 B.C., condemned the Israelites for observing some of the Philistine superstitions. The event recorded here occurred about 1050 B.C.
Harden hearts and pagan minds do not function realistically. Here, instead of acknowledging the superiority of the God of Israel over their god, they worshipped the threshold that beheaded him.
Then the Lord sent a plague of boils upon the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages. They soon realized that they could not keep the Ark of the Covenant there, but they did not know what to do with it. They called a meeting of the leaders of the 5 cities of the Philistines. They decided to take it to Gath. When the Ark arrived at Gath, the Lord began destroying the people with a plague. Then they decided to take it to Ekron, but when the people saw it coming, they didn't want it either because they had heard what happened at Gath.
So the leaders of the 5 cities met again for the plague was already beginning at Ekron. Those who didn't die from it were deathly ill and there was much weeping throughout the land of the Philistines.
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