Chapter 53. Saul’s Philistine Wars
The five Philistine lords’ powerful pentapolis and strategic village network threatened or oppressed Israel throughout the four hundred years of the judges. The Philistine network of walled cities/mibstar and country villages were cryptically linked to mice when Philistines foolishly possessed the ark of the covenant for seven perilous months.
The Philistines returned the ark of the covenant with five golden emerods, reflecting the painful anus tumors the Philistines were inflicted with for keeping the ark of the covenant without God’s permission. The five golden mice that represented the five kings and city-states of Philistia were a trespass offering to God: “Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land.”
Mice were a symbol in antiquity for pestilence according to Herodotus, which makes sense of the Philistine offering of mice and emerods from the tumor perspective. The five golden mice also represented the kings and the five cities, which is mysterious. One might view at the hubris of the Philistine Seranim stand against God was rodent-like, and that Philistine incursions were infestations of the Covenant Land. The offering did include the humbling of the Seranim, but this is only part of the overall meaning. The golden mice/akbar is defined as a mouse biting in the sense of attacking, allegoric language for the Philistines’ military network. `Akbar’s source word, `akkabiysh, is a spider’s web: a woven network, walled country villages centered by city-state fortresses that marred the Gaza region.
The Philistine mice network was bolstered by the Avvim, Anakim, Perizzim, Cherethim, Caphtorim, and Pelethim giants with their village fortress networks, the Hazerim/Chatseriym akin to Jabin’s Hazor/Chatsowr fortresses, and Duke Akbor/`Akbowr’s Pau fortress city-states of the Horim, Amalekim, and Edomite alliance.
