OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION

Biblical Allusions

Dagon

Dagon was the false half-man, half-fish god of the Philistines, mentioned in JUDGES 16 : 23-31 as the god whose temple was destroyed by Samson, and in 1 SAMUEL 4-5 : 7 as the false god who was destroyed in his own temple after the Philistines brought the captured Ark of the Covenant to the house of Dagon (1 SAMUEL 5 : 2). Bradford says that John Endicott changed the name of Thomas Morton’s Merry-Mount to Mount Dagon.

Eschol

Bradford tells of the expedition returning to Cape Cod with Indian corn for the Pilgrims: “And so, like the men from Eshcol, carried with them of the fruits of the land and showed their brethren; of which, and their return, they were marvelously glad and their hearts encouraged.”

The Wilderness

Bradford describes the Pilgrims’ plight as facing “a hideous and desolate wilderness,” and says they could not “go up to the top of Pisgah, to view from this wilderness, a more goodly country to feed their hopes.”  Unless students are familiar with the books of the Pentateuch which describe, among other historical events, the wandering […]

Hospitality

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Bradford contrasts the Indians’ cruelty to the Puritans with the “unusual kindness” shown to Paul and his companions by the natives of the island of Malta, as recorded in ACTS 27 : 1-28 : 10, after Paul was shipwrecked there: “It is recorded in Scripture as a mercy to the Apostle and his shipwrecked company, that the barbarians showed them no small kindness in…