Then they said, "What shall be the trespass-offering which we shall return to him?" They said, "Five golden tumors, 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.
"Five golden mice"  (1 Samuel 6:4).  "The abrupt mention of mice here constitutes a difficulty."[3]  To us there appears no difficulty whatever. Allegations that there must have been two plagues, one of the tumors, and the other of the mice (or rats) that have been confused and mixed up by some editor or redactor are in fact ridiculous.  There was one plague only, the bubonic disaster spread among the Philistines by the rats and the Cheops flea.  The foolish notion that the ancients "probably did not associate the rats with the plague" should be rejected.  Modern man has grossly underestimated the intelligence of ancient peoples.  They even measured the circumference of the earth with a clothes pole (See the encyclopaedias under Eratosthenes)!  The fact of these mice (or rats) not being mentioned earlier is due solely to the abbreviated nature of the narrative.