Now the Philistines had taken the ark of God, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
"Dagon" This pagan deity was a Semitic god worshipped as early as the mid-third millennium B.C.[7]  The Philistines, originally from Caphtor (Crete), adopted this deity.  Scholars give two possible origins of the name (1) [~dag] which means "fish," and (2) [~dagan] which means "corn."[8] Dagon was apparently an agricultural deity, or `corn deity.'[9]  His devotees touted him as the `father of the Canaanite god Baal'; and, "The Ras Shamra tablets referred to Baal as `the son of Dagon.'"[10]