CHAPTER 6

(1140 B.C.)

COUNSEL

¹And the Ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months (it could have been seven months of Heaven, had the Philistines only accepted the Lord; otherwise, it was seven months of Hell!).

²And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the Ark of the LORD? tell us wherewith we shall send it to His Place. (Amazing is the ability of man to resist and reject God. The deep ignorance and incurable rebellion of mans heart appear throughout this episode. When God evidenced His mighty Power before the Philistines, they were convinced, but not converted. Men, presently, proudly declare that they will become Christians if convinced by evidence. They deceive themselves. They are by nature Philistines, and Philistines they will remain, in spite of the most overwhelming proof of Gods Being and Power.)

³And they said, If you send away the Ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return Him a trespass offering: then you shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why His hand is not removed from you (they were still trying to convince themselves that quite possibly their problems were not due to the Ark of God).

⁴Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to Him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. (Is it any different presently? We try to give God our talent, education, ability, etc. He will accept none of it. He will only accept His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Blood that was shed at Calvarys Cross [Mat. 3:17].)

⁵Wherefore you shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and you shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure He will lighten His Hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. (Thinking that the giving of these images to the Lord would give Him glory presents the normal idea of the unredeemed. They do not know God, nor anything about God. It is called total depravity. How can one know the Lord, when one is dead [dead to God] in trespasses and sins [Eph. 2:1].)

⁶Wherefore then do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when He had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? (On this reference to Egypt, it is remarkable that Dagons priests so correctly point out that it was the stubbornness of the Egyptians which made their punishment so severe. They knew all of this, but they still wouldnt accept the Lord.)

⁷Now therefore make a new cart, and take two mil k kine (two cows), on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them (the separation of the cows from their calves was for the purpose of demonstrating whether the plague was supernatural after all; if, however, the cows acted in a manner contrary to nature, their last doubt would be removed, and thats exactly what happened!):

⁸And take the Ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which you return Him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go (on this cart they would place the Ark of the Covenant. This was contrary to the Law of God, because the Ark was to be borne by Priests who were consecrated and otherwise qualified to do so. Being ignorant of the Word of God, the Philistines would escape the judgment of this act; however, Davids new cart would produce sad results [II Sam. 6:1-11]).

⁹And see, if it goes up by the way of His own coast to Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not His Hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us (if the cows, unaccustomed to the yoke, left their calves behind, and drew the cart by the most direct route unto the land of Judah, this would give the required proof that the Philistines were smitten by the Hand of Jehovah, and that it was no mere chance that had happened unto them).

THE RETURN OF THE ARK

¹⁰And the men did so; and took two milk cows, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

¹¹And they laid the Ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

¹²And the cows took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh (this action, the cows leaving their calves, and especially going straight toward Beth-shemesh, proved to the Philistines, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that all of this was of the Lord).

¹³And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it.

¹⁴And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they did cleave the wood of the cart, and offered the cows (as) a Burnt Offering unto the LORD.

¹⁵And the Levites took down the Ark of the LORD, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered Burnt Offerings and sacrificed Sacrifices the same day unto the LORD. (As we see here, the Israelites had an inquisitive irreverence in respect to the Ark. God had commanded that it should be veiled by the curtains of the Tabernacle, and only approached through a Divinely appointed High Priest, with confession of sin, and the presentation of atoning blood. These people, like many today, pushed all of the Word of the Lord aside and, assisted by the Levites, exposed the Ark, and, one might even say, the Throne of God, to public view.

The Ark was not only the Throne of God on Earth, but was also, as revealed in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, a beautiful symbol of Christ in His essential Deity and sinless Humanity. Concerning this, Williams said, Ever since He rose from the dead, many who profess to be His disciples not only deny Him in His Office as the Atoning Mediator between God and men, but, with bold impiety, try to subject His mysterious nature to the demonstrations of human wisdom, impelled by the same spirit which urged the men at Beth-shemesh to look into the Ark.)

¹⁶And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.

¹⁷And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the LORD; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Askelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;

¹⁸And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the Ark of the LORD: which stone remains unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Beth-shemite.

¹⁹And He (the Lord) smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the Ark of the LORD, even He smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. (First of all, the people of Israel, except for the soldiers in the previous battle lost, had never seen the Ark of God. As well, they evidently had not been taught the proper respect and reverence for this which was the Holiest of God. In fact, their curiosity was little different than the Philistines.

There is some question here regarding the number given of the people slain, simply because of the smallness of the population in this area and the similarity of the Hebrew letters, which could have caused a copyist mistake. In fact, the Septuagint reads, He smote among them seventy men, including fifty of the mens thousand. Even seventy killed in such a small place would constitute a great loss. At any rate, whatever the actual number, men died because of their casual curiosity.)

²⁰And 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? (Seeing what had happened, the men of this area, as well, wanted to rid themselves of the Ark. Presently, far too many desire a semblance of God, but only a semblance. There is no danger in the semblance, and great danger in the reality, that is, if the Lord is treated with contempt; therefore, many presently are satisfied with the mere echo!)

²¹And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the Ark of the LORD; come you down, and fetch it up to you. (When the cover is pulled off and we are put to the test, the modern Church, as Beth-shemesh, little wants the Lord. If God is there, the spectacle of His Blessing and Judgment are side by side. The Church has repeatedly through the ages tried to have only one aspect of God, namely the Blessing. That is not possible! We must never forget that there is Redemption, and there is Judgment; consequently, there is Heaven, and there is Hell. Moses said, I set before you the way of life and the way of death [Deut. 30:19].)