Bede : Seeing the men of Ashdod had such a plague, etc. Upon seeing the idol worshippers experience the power of Christ against their gods, they refuse to accept his faith, lest on account of this they might be compelled to renounce their whole host of gods. Similarly, false Christians, seeing that due to faith in Christ the sins they love are forbidden to them, detest the religion of faith as much as they can, lest on this occasion they be commanded to extinguish the desires which they serve in place of God. The men of Ashdod in every respect, that is, worthy of the name of rift, dissolution, and burning, refuse to know the sacred Scriptures so that having known them, they would have to act according to what they have learned; and because of the Lord's sentence, which states that those who are ignorant of his will shall receive fewer stripes, they refuse to know what they ought to do: not understanding that there is a great difference between being simply ignorant and refusing to know what ought to be learned. And so, feeling this as harsh to their own wills, they impudently repel the ark of heavenly knowledge from themselves. — Commentary on Samuel Gregory the Dialogist : 7. For when they saw temples destroyed, sacrifices ceasing, wives separated from husbands and husbands from wives, sons separated from parents and fathers from sons, what else could they think but that the hand of the Lord was heavy both upon them and upon their superstition? But what was done next follows: (Verse 8.) And they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and the Gittites answered: Let the ark of God be carried around. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 3, Chapter 3