“Five gold tumors and five gold rats”
'What guilt offering should we send back to Him?' asked the Philistines. 'Five gold tumors and five gold rats,' they said, 'according to the number of rulers of the Philistines.' (1 Samuel 6:4 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A bizarre and slightly comic set of golden souvenirs.
The cultural key
Struck with a plague after seizing the ark, the Philistines send it back with a 'guilt offering' of golden images of their own affliction: tumors and rats, one set for each of their five city-lords. This is sympathetic magic, the widespread ancient idea that fashioning a likeness of an affliction and sending it away carries the affliction off with it. The pairing of tumors (swellings) with rats is medically striking, since it fits the transmission of bubonic plague by rodents, a remarkably early instinct about cause and cure. Even pagan diviners here concede that the hand of Israel's God is on them.
Recovered meaning
The Philistines try to buy off the LORD with golden models of their plague, an ancient ritual for shipping an affliction away. Their pagan guilt offering is an unwitting confession that Israel's God, not Dagon, holds the power.