Chapter Four

The war of the Hebrews with the Philistines. The loss of the Ark of the Covenant. The death of the high priest and judge Eli.

1 Samuel 4:7. And the Philistines were afraid, because they said: God has come into their camp. And they said: Woe to us! for there has not been anything like this before, not yesterday, nor the day before; The heathens thought that each people had its own god or even several gods. The Ark of the Covenant was received by the Philistines as an image, or a visible dwelling place, of their supposed national Hebrew deity — Jehovah, similar to the images which the heathens themselves possessed.

1 Samuel 4:10. And the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated, and each one fled to his tent, and the slaughter was very great, and thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell. “And the Israelites were defeated,” fulfilling the fearful judgment of the Righteousness of God toward the impious house of the high priest and judge of the Hebrews Eli (1 Sam 2:27-36), the defeat was also a tangible punishment of the people for their reckless and willful treatment of their greatest holy thing — the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.