1 Samuel 6--The Ark Returned to Israel

1 Samuel 6
English Standard Version

The Ark Returned to Israel
6 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.”

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The LORD allowed the Philistines to take the Ark from the battlefield, but that came at the expense of all kinds of plagues including tumors and infestations of rodents (the text says mice) for their people and cities.  They knew that these events were supernatural and linked to when the Ark showed up in their cities and that the events stopped when the Ark was taken to a different city.  So it was the all the lords of the Philistines held council together and decided that they needed to give the Ark back to the Israelites and they spoke to their pagan priests about what kind of peace offering needed to be offered for the offense they had committed so that these plagues might stop.  The priests told them that each lord of the Philistines needed to offer a golden offering in the shape of one of the tumors that came about by the plague and that they also needed to offer a golden mouse.  Five each for the five lords of the Philistines.

Then the text tells us that they learned a lesson from how the LORD treated the Pharaoh and all of Egypt when Pharaoh hardened his heart and continued to mistreat the people of the LORD and mocked the LORD.  Things did not end well for them and the whole nation paid the price.  They did not want that for their nation, so they decided instead to not harden their hearts but to seek peace in the only way that they knew how (though it influenced by their paganism).

The Philistines put the Ark of the Covenant on a cart pulled by two milk cows and hoped that the LORD would make sure that the cows took the Ark to the right location.  They did not want to carry it, but the five lords of the Philistines followed at a distance to make sure that the Ark was safely returned to the people of Israel.  When they saw that the people of Beth-shemesh, who were at the time reaping their harvest, saw the ark being returned and took possession of it, the Philistine lords went back to the city of Ekron.

The Levites that were there in that town took the Ark off the cart and split the wood from the cart to offer burnt offerings to the LORD to thank Him for the return of the Ark.  Even though this seems like a good thing, it was not, for only the sons of Aaron were to touch the Ark, so the city of Beth-shemesh was also judges because many of its people looked on the Ark and seventy of their inhabitants died that day.  They cried out and mourned and then realized their error when they said, "Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God?."  Only those who He had designated could approach Him and only in the manner that He prescribed.  To try to approach Him in any other way (this is comparable to men trying to come up with their own religious systems that they think will also gain them access to God when the gospel of Jesus Christ is exclusive, for He is the only way to come to the Father) would die.  They begged for the Ark to be taken away from them (just like the Philistines did) and they sent messengers to the town of Kiriath-jearim and told them the Ark had returned and asked them to come and get it.

I'll include a map below so you can see where the Ark started and all the Philistine cities that it travelled to and where it ended up.  It would end up staying in the house of a man in Kiriath-jearim for about 20 years (we'll see that in chapter 7).