1 Samuel 4:8

These mighty Gods. In Hebrew "Elohim, though plural, is used of the one true God, but in this sense has always the verb or adjective belonging to it in the singular. In 1 Samuel 4:7 the Philistines conform to this rule, and say, Elohim is come; but here the verb, pronoun, and adjective are all plural, i.e. they speak as heathen, to whom polytheism was natural. With all the plagues. Rather, "with every plague," i.e. with every kind of plague. In the wilderness. God did not really smite the Egyptians in the wilderness. The plagues, including the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, had all happened before the Israelites had entered it. But probably the Philistines confused together the plagues of Egypt and the miracles in the wilderness, and even the conquest of Canaan, in one grand but vague whole, and so were ready to give way to despair, as they called to mind the traditions they had heard of these mighty interpositions of God for his people.