Chapter 6
The Return of the Ark of God. 1 When the Ark of the Lord had been held in Philistine territory for seven months, 2 the Philistines summoned the priests and diviners and said, “What should we do with the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how to send it back home.”
3 They answered, “If you return the Ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty-handed. Rather, send a guilt offering to him. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why he continued to afflict you.”[a] 4 They then asked, “What sort of guilt offering should be made to him?” They answered, “Send five golden tumors and five golden mice, as many as the lords of the Philistines, for the plague was on you all, lords included. 5 You should make offerings in the likeness of tumors and in the likeness of the mice that have been ravaging the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will ease up on you, your gods, and your land.
6 “Why would you harden your hearts, like the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he dealt harshly with them, did they not let them go, and they went their way?
7 [b]“Prepare a cart drawn by two milk cows that have calves but have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take the calves away, leading them home. 8 Take the Ark of the Lord and place it upon the cart, and put the figures of gold that you are sending back as a guilt offering in a box at its side. Then send it off, and let it go its way. 9 Watch it, and if it goes up the road to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is clear that he has brought this great woe upon us. But if it does not, then we shall know that it was not he who punished us, that it happened by chance.”
10 The Ark at Beth-shemesh. The men did this. They took two milk cows and tied them to a cart, shutting up their calves at home. 11 They then put the Ark of the Lord upon the cart along with the box containing the golden mice and the statues of the tumors. 12 The cows went straight up to Beth-shemesh, sticking to the road and lowing as they went along. They did not waver in their course to the right nor the left. The lords of the Philistines followed them as far as the border with Beth-shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley when they looked up and saw the Ark. They rejoiced at what they saw. 14 The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh, and it stopped there by a large rock. The people chopped up the wood from the cart and offered up the milk cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. 15 The Levites lowered the Ark down along with the box that contained the objects made of gold and placed them on the large rock. On that day the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and performed sacrifices to the Lord.
16 The five lords of the Philistines saw all of this and returned to Ekron that same day. 17 The golden tumors that the Philistines sent back as a guilt offering to the Lord were for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron: one tumor for each city. 18 There were as many golden mice as there were cities under the rule of the five lords of the Philistines, both the fortified cities and the country villages. The large rock upon which they set the Ark of the Lord is in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh to this day.
19 Punishment for Irreverence. He slew some of the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the Ark of the Lord. He slew seventy of them.[c] The people raised up a lamentation because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter. 20 The men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? To whom should we send it?” 21 They sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-jearim saying, “The Philistines have sent back the Ark of the Lord. Come down and fetch it for yourselves.”
Footnotes
- 1 Samuel 6:3 The Philistine priests and diviners responded to the Ark as they traditionally would in appeasing an angry god. Their guilt offering, however, was not in line with Levitical requirements.
- 1 Samuel 6:7 This passage depicts another Philistine ploy to determine if the god of the Israelites was responsible for bringing them harm. God had his own reasons for showing them his power over the milk cows.
- 1 Samuel 6:19 He slew seventy of them: here is another instance of God meting out the punishment he had promised for disobedience. God tried over and over again to bring back his people to his ways to avoid further retribution.