 The word is most commonly encountered, however, in the King James Bible, where it appears in the First Book of Samuel as a plague that afflicted the Philistines who had captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites.Chapter 5 of I Samuel describes a "plague of emerods" that smote the people of Ashdod in their "secret parts", causing many to die.According to chapter 6, the plague was not relieved until the Philistines returned the Ark of the Covenant to the Israelites, along with a trespass offering of "five golden emerods and five golden mice" (the plague of emerods occurred simultaneously with a plague of mice).