DAGON. — In the Old Testament this is the name of a god of the Philistines, whose worship is attested at Gaza (Iudc. 16:23), at Ashdod (I Sam. 5:1–7) in the time of the Judges, and again in the time of the Maccabees (ca. 150 B.C.; cf. I Mach. 10:83 ff.; 11:4). But the worship of D. in Palestine is older than the invasion of the Philistines, as is shown by the name Daganathah of a prince mentioned in the el-‘Amârah letters, and by the local name Bethdagon of two cities, one in Judah and the other in Asher (Ios. 15:41; 19:27).
The original seat of the worship of Dagan (D.) is western Mesopotamia; the first mention of the god Dagana (Dagana) is found in an inscription of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 2500 B.C.); numerous literary documents show that his worship gradually spread into Babylonia, Assyria, and Cappadocia. He was also known in Phoenicia, as appears from a fragment of Philo of Byblos (A.D. 64–140), who reports that, according to Sanchuniathon (last third of the second millennium [?]), D. was the brother of Kronos (El), god of agriculture and grain (Σίτων, Ζεύς ἀπότρας); this information is confirmed by the inscriptions on two votive stelae found in a temple and by several other texts from Ras Samra (17th–15th centuries B.C.), which attest that D. was regarded as the father of Baal.
The name has so far not been explained; it is connected neither with dâghân (“grain”) nor with dâgh (“fish”). A late rabbinic legend, unsupported by any ancient document, says that the god D. was represented in the form of a man with the body of a fish. Images of a god in the form of a fish-man, found on coins from Arados and Ascalon, probably do not refer to the god D. The temple of D. mentioned in I Par. 10:10 was not located at Bethshan, but in the land of the Philistines.
dieu D., in Syria, 16 (1935), p. 177 ff. (cf. p. 155 ff.); N. Schneider, Die Gottesnamen von Ur III (Amalecta Orientalia, 19), Rome 1936, no. 66, p. 16 ff. Apostino Bea