Now the Philistines had taken the ark of God, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
The name Ashdod means "stronghold or fortress";[5] and the history of the place justified the name.  "An Egyptian ruler besieged it for 29 years on one occasion (according to Herodotus)."[6]  The Jews were finally able to destroy the place when Jonathan finally did it in the times of the Maccabees  (1 Maccabees 10:84).