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Dagon Idol
Dagonidol1

Manufacturer

Unknown

Materials

Stone

Usage

Religious object

Owners

Dagon Priests

"We debased the symbol of Philistine oppression!"
Zackeus brags about how he and his friends Yehude and Mizraim plastered the Dagon idol with mud[src]

The Dagon Idol is a statue representation of the god Dagon, a deity whom the Philistines worship in their temple at Gezer. The Dagon priests are servants of Dagon and stewards of his shrine, and it it their duty to interpret omens and relay the meaning of these signs to the Philistine people.

Attempting to strike back at Philistine tyranny toward the Hebrew community in Gezer, three young political activists - Zackeus, Yehude, and Mizraim - sneak into the Dagon temple and plaster the idol with mud and produce. Zarah, realizing that Philistine Commander Sidon's reprisals against the local Hebrews for this act of vandalism will be harsh, conscripts her brother Branan to help her transport the colossal statue down to the city fountain to splash it clean before the temple priests resume their duties in the morning and notice the idol missing.

Unfortunately, Zarah and Branan are unable to get the statue to the fountain because of the local city patrol. They then decide to float the idol down a sewage canal to the river and splash the statue clean there. When Branan and Zarah stand the idol up in the river, Dagon begins to sink down into the mud. Branan and Zarah then pull the idol out of the mud with some rope and set it up on the riverbank, where they resume bathing the statue with river water.

In an instance of particularly bad luck, Branan loses his grip on the idol just outside the temple, letting the god slip down back into the mud and rendering Dagon even more filthy than it was when they started. Having run out of time to complete the mission, Zarah and Branan hustle the idol back onto its dais in the temple facing the wrong way. Providentially, however, the Dagon priests interpret the begrimed, filthy statue of their lord as a sign from the gods that the grain tributes the local Hebrews having been paying are overly punitive. Thus, they order the collectors of the tributes to take only half the amount of grain they were seizing before.

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