The First Book of Samuel, otherwise called the First Book of the Kings
1 Samuel 6
Chapter VI · Vol. II, pp. 637–638
1 After seven months the Philistines take counsel how to send back the ark. 10 They bring it on a new cart with an offering unto Beth-shemesh. 19 The people are smitten for looking into the ark. 21 They send to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim to fetch it.
1 And thea ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months.
A.M. 2909 B.C. 1095
a Ps.78.61. ch.v.
2 And the Philistines called for bthe priests and the diviners,1 saying, What shall we do to the ark of the LORD? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place.
3 And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, csend it not empty; but in any wise return2 him a dtrespass-offering:3 then ye shall be healed, and it eshall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.4
2 Heb. rendering, render.
3 These idolaters acknowledge the hand or providence of God in the epidemic that afflicted the Philistines, and thereby rebuke and condemn those pretended wise men who can see nothing in the world but the operation of cause and effect; that is, of a mere chain of material influences, and who blindly overlook the government of an all-wise Providence.—C.
e ver.9.
4 It was the general belief among the ancient heathen that each country had a deity peculiar to itself. The Philistines therefore acknowledged the local supremacy and power of Jehovah. They did not regard or reverence him as the one only God, but simply as one of the deities who specially superintended each his own country, province, or city.—P.
4 Then 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 fone plague was on you5 all, and on your lords.
5 Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your gmice that mar the land; and ye shall hgive glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from ioff your gods, and from off your land.
6 Wherefore then do ye kharden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought 6wonderfully among them, did they not let the people7 go, and they departed?
7 Now therefore make a lnew cart, and take two milch kine,8 on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:
8 There was great worldly wisdom in this plan, and it certainly required a miraculous interference to bear witness to the glory and providence of God. But, as 'all sheep and oxen, and beasts of the field' are his, the irrational creature is obedient, where the rational has rebelled.—C.
8 And take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the mjewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass-offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.
m Heb. golden vessels, ver.5,11.
9 And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to nBeth-shemesh, then he9 hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance1 that happened to us.
n This was a city of the priests, Jos.21.16; and on the straight way to Shiloh, the former residence of the ark.
9 Or, it.
1 Cause and effect, that is, as has been said on ver.3, a mere chain of material influences, may be considered as the only god of many calling themselves and called philosophers. Chance, that is, effect without any cause, is the more senseless, but not less atheistic system of the more ignorant.—C.
10 And the men did so; and took two milch-kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:
11 And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.
12 And the kine took the straight way to the way of oBeth-shemesh, and went2 along the highway,3 lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left;4 and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.
A.M. 2909 B.C. 1095
2 Heb. in a street they went.
3 Highway, not a modern European road, for such works scarcely exist in the East, but merely a way cleared of obstructions. 'Lowing as they went,' the voice of nature calling to their offspring; but a voice of witness for God to the afflicted and humbled Philistines.—C.
4 The circumstance of the two kine, which had never before been in the yoke, drawing quietly and keeping the road without a driver, for several miles, neither stopping nor turning aside, and while lowing for their calves, nevertheless urged forward by a stronger impulse to the very place mentioned by the Philistines, and there stopping, is in all respects an astonishing miracle.—I.
13 And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: pand they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
p Le.23.16,17. Ex.23.16.
14 And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood5 there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and qoffered the kine a burnt-offering unto the LORD.6
5 It was proper that the priests only should now take care of it.
q Ju.21.4. ch.7.9,17; 11.15; 15.15; 20.6. 2 Sa.24.18,25. 1 Ki.18.30-38. Ex.20.24.
6 The city and district was the property of the Levites who thus offered an extemporaneous sacrifice to Jehovah. The propriety of the sacrifice in this place is more than questionable. It should have been reserved for Shiloh. Had the Levites respected the law in this particular, it is most probable the Beth-shemites would have also more reverenced the ark, and so have escaped the judgment inflicted on their irreverent curiosity. C.—Both the cart and cattle having been employed in this sacred service, they could no longer be used for any secular purpose; and therefore the cattle were sacrificed and the cart was broken up for fuel to consume the sacrifice.—Clarke.
15 And the rLevites took down7 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.
r Priests, Nu.4.15. 2 Sa.6.6,7.
7 Or, 'for the Levites had taken down.' It had been providentially brought to a Levitical city, and it was right that they only should take care of it.—I.
16 And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
17 And 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:
18 And 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 sgreat stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the LORD: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.
s Or, great Abel, i.e. mourning, ver.19. Ge.50.11.
19 And he tsmote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people 8fifty thousand and threescore and ten 9men. And the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
A.M. 2909 B.C. 1095
t Ex.19.21. Nu.4.5,20. De.20.29; 4.24. Jos.24.19. 2 Sa.6.7. Ps.131.1. Col.2.18. Pr.11.31. 1 Pe.4.17.
8 Perhaps seventy—fifty out of a thousand.
9 The literal translation of the Hebrew is as follows:—'And he smote the men of Bethshemesh because they looked into the ark of Jehovah; and he smote of the people seventy men, fifty thousand men.' The last words, 'fifty thousand men,' are wanting in some very ancient Hebrew manuscripts, and they are omitted by Josephus. This tends to leave the impression that the words are interpolated, and that seventy was the total number of those who perished.—P.
Notes
[Ver. 4. Five golden emerods, and five golden mice. Such votive offerings have been, and still are, common both in heathen countries and amongst superstitious Christians. If it did not previously exist, here is the origin of the custom; and, at all events, this is the earliest historic notice of a practice that flatters human vanity, and indulges will-worship, while it affects to honour God.—Note, Almost all the superstitions that have disfigured and degraded Christianity may be clearly traced to their origin in heathenism. C.]
Ver. 5. [The invasion of mice still continues to be a plague in several countries. In search of food, or under some unknown impulse, they descend from mountains, and issue from forests, in such myriads as to occupy the whole country, to destroy the hoards of grain, and lay the land as waste as if overrun by the most hostile army. C.]
Ver. 16. [Ekron (now Akîr) stands on the southern slope of a low ridge which separates the plain of Philistia from Sharon. Immediately to the south of the site, at the foot of the slope, is a broad wady, or depression in the plain, which runs away up eastward to the hills of Judah, gradually contracting and deepening until it becomes a sublime ravine, cutting deeply into the mountain chain. Near the opening of the ravine into the plain, on a broad terrace on its southern bank, are the ruins of Bethshemesh. The route of the ark I was able to trace with ease upon the spot. The kine went down the gentle slope from Ekron, then up the vale towards the mountains, and came at length to a stand in the valley below Bethshemesh. The distance from Ekron is about 10 miles. P.]
Ver. 19. [Smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. How so many persons could be collected into a small village appears so strange as to be considered impossible. Hence every effort of commentators has been made to reduce the number, and so reconcile it with probability. Josephus estimates the people smitten at merely 70. The Syriac and Arabic translations at 5070. Others propose to insert a letter, and thereby reduce the number to 50 out of 1000. These efforts, however, are vain, against the almost universal authority of MSS. and translations. But after all, are not the difficulties totally artificial, the fault not of the text, but the work of the commentators themselves? Let the text, as it will justly bear, be translated and pointed thus:—'And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark; and he smote of the people 50,070 men: and the people lamented because the LORD had smitten of the people with a great slaughter.' Now the text says, God 'smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark,' but does not state how many. Then the text adds, that 'he smote of the people,' that is, not of the Bethshemites in particular, but of the Israelites generally (Bethshemites inclusive), 50,070 men, but does not state during what space of time the judgment continued. Now, what can be more natural than that, when the news of the return of the ark to Bethshemesh would be noised abroad, there should be a vast concourse of the people, day after day, to hear and to see. Would it not be considered an act of patriotism and religion combined, to go on a pilgrimage to visit the recovered centre of their holy services? Where then is the difficulty of comprehending how, in a few days, and for aught that is said it may have taken weeks or months, not merely 50,070, but five times 50,070, may have visited Bethshemesh? Then it is not said 50,070 died, but only that so many of the people were smitten, most probably by the Philistine epidemic and emerods. And when it is added, that 'the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter,' it is not said how many of those who were smitten by the disease actually died in the slaughter, but only that it was great. And now, should any insist that the whole 50,070 must have died, and granting this to have actually been the case, let it only be remembered that these are not asserted to have been Bethshemites, but of the people, while the time of the judgment is not specified; and if 50,070 did perish in the epidemic contracted at Bethshemesh, and carried from Dan to Beersheba by the pilgrim visitants, the experience of all ages can exemplify greater ravages, although men may not have seen or acknowledged in them, as the sacred writers did, the immediate finger of God. C.]
Reflections.—To be deprived of God's ordinances, though it be only for a time, is very alarming; yet much more so to have them made a plague to us. By holding fast their sins men only prolong their sorrows. God can easily make the stoutest of his enemies to bow down to him, and even cause them to become, to his honour, lasting memorials of their own shame. But it is much happier to be warned by other men's experience than by our own. And when we have repented of our sins, we may hope for a removal of our miseries. Wicked men would fain shift their convictions, and ascribe their sufferings to any cause rather than to the hand of God. And God often patiently suffers himself to be tempted and put to the trial; but the issue shall tend to his own glory; and the very means which men had taken to confirm themselves in infidelity shall turn out to their more unanswerable conviction of the truth. He alone can deliver his church and restore his ordinances when all others lie by unconcerned. And with great joy and thanksgiving, even to the interruption of the most urgent earthly concerns, ought his returns and revivals of religion to be welcomed. But what fear and reverence are due to him, and his ordinances, in the meetings of his saints! He is a holy Lord God! and it is dangerous to indulge a vain curiosity in our concerns with him; and infinitely destructive to come near to behold the broken law, but as fulfilled in Christ. How miserable is that nation in which no common care is taken about the ordinances of Christ: but one place yields them to another, and forfeits those blessings which God has connected with them! Let us learn properly to value the privileges which God graciously bestows; and so to improve them that they may not become a curse but a blessing to us.