1 Samuel 5:7

“And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, etc.] That many of their inhabitants were taken away by death, and others afflicted with a painful disease; all which they imputed to the ark being among them: they said, the ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us; like the Gergesenes, who besought Christ to depart their coasts, having more regard for their swine than for him: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon, our god, not the hand of the ark, unless they took it for a god, but the hand of the God of Israel; in this they were right, and seem to have understood the case better than the other lords they after consulted; his hand was upon Dagon, as appeared his fall before the…”

“the ark of God shall not abide with us--It was removed successively to several of the large towns of the country, but the same pestilence broke out in every place and raged so fiercely and fatally that the authorities were forced to send the ark back into the land of Israel [Sa1 5:8-10].”

“saw: Sa1 4:8; Exo 8:8, Exo 8:28, Exo 9:28, Exo 10:7, Exo 12:33 The ark: Sa1 6:20; Sa2 6:9; Ch1 13:11-13, Ch1 15:13 upon Dagon our god: Sa1 5:3, Sa1 5:4; Jer 46:25, Jer 48:7 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 5:8”

“"When the Ashdodites saw that it was so," they were unwilling to keep the ark of the God of Israel any longer, because the hand of Jehovah lay heavy upon them and their god Dagon; whereupon the princes of the Philistines (סרני, as in Jos 13:3, etc.) assembled together, and came to the resolution to "let the ark of the God of Israel turn (i.e., be taken) to Gath" ( Sa1 5:8). The princes of the Philistines probably imagined that the calamity which the Ashdodites attributed to the ark of God, either did not proceed from the ark, i.e., from the God of Israel, or if actually connected with the presence of the ark, simply arose from the fact that the city itself was hateful to the God of the…”