the false god of Ashdod*, or, as the Greeks call it, Azotus. He is commonly represented chap. v. as a monster, half man and half fish: whence most learned men derive his name from the Hebrew dag, which signifies a fish. Those, who make him to have been the inventor of bread-corn, derive his name from the Hebrew Dagan, which signifies grain; whence Philo Biblius calls him Zing Apollos Jupiter Aratius.

This deity continued to have a temple at Ashdod, during all the ages of idolatry, to the time of the Maccabees. For the author of the first book of Maccabees tells us, that "Jonathan, one of the Maccabees, having beaten the army of Apollonius, Demetrius's general, they fled to Azotus, and entered into Beth-dagon (the temple of their idol); but that Jonathan set fire to Azotus, and burnt the temple of Dagon, and all those who were fled into it.

Dagon, according to some, was the same with Jupiter, according to others Saturn, according to others Venus, and according to most Neptune.