Return of the ark to Israel
6
📚And the ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines for seven months. 2 📚And the Philistines called for the priests and those who practiced divination 📖, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how we should send it to its place”. 3 📚And they said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means send back a trespass offering to him. Then you will be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you”.
6:3 There was a recognition that they had dishonored the God of Israel and were being punished for it.⚜
4 📚Then they said, “What should the trespass offering be which we send back to him?” They answered, “Five gold tumours and five gold rats, in accordance with the number of the lords of the Philistines, for the same plague was on you all and on your lords. 5 📚Therefore you must make models of your tumours, and models of your rats that are ruining the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will relax his hand from you and from your gods and from your land.
6:5 The plague which came on the Philistines was probably brought by rats, and it resulted in tumors (1 Sam 5:6).⚜
6 📚Why then do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he 📖 had worked wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and did they not depart?
7 📚“Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milk cows on which a yoke has never come, and tie the cows to the cart, and take their calves home from them. 8 📚And take the ark of the LORD and lay it on the cart, and put the gold articles, which you are sending back to him as a trespass offering, in a box by its side, and send it away, so that it may go its own way. 9 📚And see, if it goes up by the road of its own territory to Beth-Shemesh, then he has done us this great harm. But if not, then we will know that it is not his hand that struck us, but that it happened to us by chance”.
6:7-9 Even yet they were not sure that the plague which struck them was from Jehovah. This final test should have convinced them beyond doubt.⚜
6:9 Beth-Shemesh was a town in Judah near the border of Philistine-held territory.⚜
10 And the men did so. They took two milk cows and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 11 📚And they placed the ark of the LORD on the cart, and the box with the gold rats and the models of their tumours. 12 📚And the cows took the straight way on the road to Beth-Shemesh and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth-Shemesh.
13 And the people of Beth-Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they raised their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. 14 📚And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and stood there where there was a great stone. And they chopped up the wood of the cart, and offered the cows as a burnt offering 📖 to the LORD. 15 📚And the Levites 📖 took down the ark of the LORD, and the box that was with it, in which were the gold articles, and put them on the great stone. And the same day the men of Beth-Shemesh offered burnt offerings and offered sacrifices to the LORD. 16 📚And when the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
17 📚And these are the gold tumours which the Philistines sent back as a trespass offering to the LORD: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Askelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron, 18 📚and the gold rats in accordance with the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and country villages. These things came to the great stone of Abel, on which they set down the ark of the LORD. This stone remains to this day in the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite.
6:18 Of course, the Joshua here is not the one who had been the leader of Israel.⚜
19 📚And the LORD struck the men of Beth-Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy 📖 of the people. And the people lamented, because the LORD had struck down many of the people with a great slaughter.
6:19 There was joy at the return of the ark (v 13), but, on the part of some, a lack of reverence which God punished severely. God wants us to rejoice in all He has given us, but we must never lose our reverence for the holy things of God. Here God was teaching His people a lesson concerning His holy nature. See Num 4:5, 15, 20; 2 Sam 6:7; 1 Chron 13:9-10.⚜
20 📚And the men of Beth-Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before this holy 📖 LORD God? And to whom shall he go up from us?” 21 📚And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have brought back the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to you”.