What does 1 Samuel 6:17 mean?

Verses 17 and 18 comprise an official list with a heading and a summary. Some commentators speculate that this list may have been put into the box with the guilt offering of the golden mice.

The heading for the list says that these are the golden tumors—either accompanied by or represented by figures of mice—which the Philistines returned with the ark as a guilt offering to the Lord. The offerings correspond to each of the five major cities of the Philistines and the territories under their control: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. Commentators differ about whether there were five golden items or ten in the box.

These are described as a guilt offering because the Philistine religious leaders were attempting to appease God. They hoped that He would take away their guilt for having held the ark of the Lord captive for seven months (1 Samuel 6:1–4). More specifically, they wanted Israel's God to take away the plague and the panic that He had sent on their nation (1 Samuel 5:6–12; 6:5).