1 Sam 5:4

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the head.

Isa 2:18; Isa 2:19; Isa 27:9; Jer 10:11; Jer 50:2; Ezek 6:4-6; Dan 11:8; Mic 1:7

of Dagon.

The name of this idol, Dagon, signifies a fish: and it is supposed to be the Atergatis of the Syrians, corruptly called Derceto by the Greeks, which had the upper part like a woman, and the lower part like a fish; as Lucian informs us: [Derketous de eidos en Phoinike ethe�am�, the�a xenon; �isen men gyn� to de okoson ek m�� es akrous podas, ichtlyos our�apoteinetai;] "In Phoenicia I saw the image of Derceto; a strange sight truly!

For she had the half of a woman, but from the thighs downward a fish's tail." Diodorus, (1. ii.) describing the same idol, as represented at Askelon, says, [to men pros�on echei synaikos, to d'allo s�a pan ichthyos.] "It had the head of a woman, but all the rest of the body a fish's." Probably Horace alludes to this idol, in De Art.

Poet. 1Sam 5:4; {Desinat in piscem, mulier formosa superne:} "The upper part a handsome woman, and the lower part a fish." If such was the form of this idol, then everything that was human was broken off from what resembled a fish.

the stump. or, the fishy part.