1 The ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months. 2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us with what we shall send it to its place.” 3 They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you.” 4 And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him?” They answered, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. 5 So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you and your gods and your land. 6 Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed? 7 Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them. 8 And take the ark of the LORD and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way 9 and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”
10 The men did so, and took two milk cows and yoked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. 11 And they put the ark of the LORD on the cart and the box with the golden mice and the images of their tumors. 12 And the cows went straight in the direction of Beth-shemesh along one highway, lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh. 13 Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it. 14 The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. A great stone was there. And they split 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 beside it, in which were the golden figures, and set them upon the great stone. And the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices on that day to the LORD. 16 And when the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned that day to Ekron.
17 These are the golden tumors that the Philistines returned as a guilt offering to the LORD: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron, 18 and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and unwalled villages. The great stone beside which they set down the ark of the LORD is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.
19 And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow. 20 Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” 21 So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to you.”
7:1 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took up the ark of the LORD and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the LORD. 2 From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.
(ESV)
STOP! Think a little 🤔 What is God saying to you?
- What is the writer saying?
- How do I apply this to my life?
After suffering for seven months, the Philistines wanted to return the ark of the Lord. They gathered their priests and diviners to find out how they should go about returning the ark. In their religious understanding, if they did things the wrong way, the God of Israel might become angrier and they would suffer further. God had warned Israel about the practice of divination in the nations they were entering and they were forbidden from consulting them because they “were an abomination to the Lord” (Deu 18:9-19). The diviners had some knowledge of Israel’s religious practices. They knew that they needed to honour God with a guilt offering but the solution they proposed was misguided. Instead of offering a ram as a guilt offering, they offered golden images of detestable animals (rats) and unclean parts of the human body (the tumors). Lastly, they directed that the ark be transported on an ox cart which was strictly forbidden (Num 7:7-9). The process they suggested was expected to accomplish two purposes: to remove the deadly object from their presence and to determine the root cause of their ailments. To do this they took a new cart to be pulled by two cows that had never been yoked before and had been separated from their unweaned calves. If a pair of untrained cows could work together to pull the cart in the right direction while ignoring their maternal instincts to return to their calves, then they would accept that Yahweh was the source of their great disaster. They followed the directions of the diviners and the cows pulled the cart directly to Beth-shemesh without turning to the right or to the left. God made it abundantly clear that the Philistines’ troubles were no coincidence.
The people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest when they saw the ark coming into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh where it stopped. There was a great stone there so they broke up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the two cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. The town of Beth-shemesh was a Levitical town so the people should have known the correct treatment of the ark and acceptable methods of worship. Only male animals were acceptable for burnt offerings (Lev 1:3). They set the ark on a large rock along with the golden figures and continued to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The five lords of the Philistines saw this and returned to Ekron. Unfortunately, the people of Beth-shemesh didn’t handle the ark of the Lord in the correct manner. They were not allowed to look at, let alone touch the ark (Num 4:5,15,20). But it seems the people of Beth-shemesh opened the ark and looked inside. God struck down 50,070 men that day because of their irreverence. Some Bibles only mention 70 men, some say 70 of 50,000, probably because of the difficulty of reconciling such a large number of people. But most Hebrew manuscripts contain the larger number. If God struck down that many people, it was significantly more than had died at the hands of the Philistines (30,000 in 1 Sam 4:10). The people mourned because the Lord had dealt them such a great blow. They rightly recognised, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?” Then they too wanted the ark of the Lord to be removed and they sent it to Kiriath-Jearim where it was taken to the house of Abinadab and remained there for twenty years. In fact, the ark remained in the care of Abinadab for just over 100 years until David brought it up to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:1-3).
God dealt severely with both unbelievers (the Philistines) and His people when they disregarded His strict requirements. The strict religious practices of the Old Testament have fallen away but that doesn’t mean that we can be flippant in how we deal with God almighty. It is so important that we recognise God as “the Lord, this holy God” and revere Him as the One who is unlike us. He is above all!
Major Stories of the Bible Reading Plan
Peter Confesses Christ as Messiah: Matthew 15-16