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DAGON

DAGON

A Mesopotamian and ancient Canaanite deity he was worshiped for many things. He was worshiped as a fertility god in Ebla, Assyria, Ugarit, and among the Amorites. The Hebrew Bible mentions him as the national god of the Philistines with temples in Ashdod and elsewhere in Gaza. A long-standing association with the Canaanite word for "fish" perhaps even going back to the Iron age, has led people to see him as a "fish-gd", and the association of merman motifs in Assyrian art. The god's name was, however, more likely derived from a word for "grain", suggesting that he was in origin associated with fertility and agriculture.

BRONZE AGE
The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the Mesopotamian gods Ilu, Dagon, and Adad are especially common.

At Ebla, from at least 2300 BC, Dagon was the head of the city pantheon comprising some two-hundred deities and bore the titles BE-DINGIR-DINGIR, "Lord of the gods" and Bekalam, "Lord of the land". His consort was known as Belatu, "Lady". Both were worshiped in a large temple complex called E-Mul, "House of the Star". One entire quarter of Ebla and one of its gates were named after Dagon. Dagon is called ti-lu ma-tim, "dew of the lands" and Be-ka-na-na, "Lord of Canaan". He was called lord of many cities: of Tuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and Sipishu.

Dagon is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes more prominent only in later Assyro-Bablonian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enlil. Dagon's wife was in some sources the goddess Shala. But in others, his wife is Ishara. In the preface to his famous law code, King Hammurabi calls himself "the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagon, his creator".

King Zimri-Lim of Mari in the 18th century BC, wrote a letter referencing Dagon. It relates a dream of a "man from Shaka" in which Dagon appeared. In the dream, Dagon blamed Zimri-Lim's failure to subdue the King of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim's failure to bring a report of his deeds to Dagon in Terqa. Dagon promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: "I will have the kings of Yaminites cooked on a fisherman's spit, and I will lay them before you."

In Ugarit around 1300 BC, Dagon had a large temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and  Ēl, and preceding, Ba'al Ṣapān.

IRON AGE
The stele of the 9th century BC Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal II refer to Ashurnasirpal as the favorite of Anu and Dagon. In an Assyrian poem, Dagon appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the Underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra.

The Phoenician inscription of the sarcophagus of King Eshmun'azar of Sidon says, "furthermore, the Lord of Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds which I did."

HEBREW BIBLE
In the Hebrew Bible, Dagon is particularly the god of the Philistines with temples at Beth-dagon in the trible of Asher, in Gaza, and Ashdod. There was also a second place known as Beth-dagon in Judah. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus mentions a place name Dagon above Jericho.

In 1 Samuel 5.2-7 it tells of how the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod. The following morning the Ashdodites found the image of Dagon lying prostrate before the ark. They set the image upright, but again on the morning following they found it prostrate before the ark, but this time the head and hands were severed lying on the threshold. The account continues with the puzzling words raq dāgôn nišʾar ʿālāyw, which means "only Dagon was left to him"

Thereafter we are told that neither the priests nor anyone ever steps on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod "unto this day"