Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness.
The first words of this paragraph, which relate to Samuel, that his word came to all Israel, seem not to have any reference to the following story, as if it was by any direction of his that the Israelites went out against the Philistines.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 4:1-9
Woe unto us, who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods?.... Of whom they spoke in an ironical and sneering manner; or if seriously and through fear, they use their own Heathenish language, as if the Israelites had many gods, as they had, though mightier than theirs; though the Syriac and Arabic versions read in the singular, out of the hand...
Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these [are] the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. (d) For in the Red Sea in the wilderness the Egyptians were destroyed, which was the last of all his plagues.