Chapter Six

The return of the Ark of the Covenant from the land of the Philistines. The temporary stopping of the Ark at Beth-shemesh.

1 Samuel 6:2. And the Philistines called their priests and their diviners [and their enchanters] and said: What shall we do with the Ark of the Lord? teach us how to send it to its place. 1 Samuel 6:3. And they said: If you send away the Ark [of the covenant of the Lord,] God of Israel, do not send it empty, but certainly make Him a gift of guilt-offering; then you will be healed and will know why His hand does not turn away from you. 1 Samuel 6:4. And they said: What is the guilt-offering which we should make to Him? And they said: Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was upon all of you and upon your lords; 1 Samuel 6:5. so make images of your tumors and images of your mice that destroy the land, and give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand upon you and upon your gods and upon your land; 1 Samuel 6:6. And why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? Did not He show His might upon them, and did they not then let them go, and they departed? 1 Samuel 6:7. Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milk cows on which there has never been a yoke, and harness the cows to the cart, but take their calves home away from them; 1 Samuel 6:8. And take the Ark of the Lord and put it upon the cart, and the golden vessels which you offer to Him in recompense put in the box beside it; and send it away, and let it go; In the ancient pagan world there existed a custom of appeasing some god by making an offering of metal images of the affliction which had fallen upon a human being or his possessions. It is known, for example, that the Athenians offered to a god images of those parts of the human body which were struck by disease. In some localities (in northern European Russia, in India, etc.) this custom has been preserved to the present day. The custom of offering to a god metal images (or in general signs) of the affliction that weighed upon a human being was also practiced as a thanksgiving offering on the occasion of deliverance from that affliction. Prisoners who had gained their freedom would hang their chains in temples; those saved from shipwreck would hang a metal plate depicting a sinking ship. Lucius Collodius, healed of deafness, offered to the goddess Minerva ears made of silver. Like the aforementioned custom, this practice has not lost its significance in some pagan localities to the present day. With the appearance of Christianity the custom of offering to God some material sign of affliction that has come upon or befell a person did not entirely fall out of use: Christian history testifies that it had its place in Christianity as well, though it was already substantially different from its ancient original among the heathens. Through contact with Christianity the practice was internally purified, becoming instead of a manifestation of pagan superstition an expression of deep faith and heartfelt devotion of the Christian to the One true, almighty, and all-good God. Among the most striking examples of the existence of this practice in Christian antiquity can be mentioned the case when, healed by the Mother of God, Saint John of Damascus made from silver an image of the cut-off arm which had been restored to him by the iconoclasts, and now by miracle was joined again to the rest of his body, and he affixed this image to that icon of the Mother of God before which he prayed, from which this icon received the name “the Three-Handed.”

1 Samuel 6:10. And they did so; and they took two milk cows and harnessed them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home; “And they shut up their calves at home”: by the natural order of things, the milk cows should have gone not to Beth-shemesh, but home, to their calves.

1 Samuel 6:15. And the Levites took down the Ark of the Lord and the box beside it, in which were the golden vessels, and set them on the great stone; and the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord on that day. Beth-shemesh — a city located to the west of Bethlehem.

1 Samuel 6:17. And these are the golden tumors which the Philistines gave as a guilt-offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron; See the note to 1 Sam 5. The five Philistine cities are named not because only these cities were smitten with punishment from above, but because these five cities were the capitals of the five chief princes of the Philistines (1 Sam 6:4), who grouped around themselves the other cities and lands of the Philistine territory.

1 Samuel 6:18. And the golden mice were according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines — the five lords, both for the fortified cities and for the open villages, even to the great stone on which they set the Ark of the Lord, which remains to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh. “Open villages” means villages without a fortified wall. “To the great stone” near Beth-shemesh “on which they set the Ark of the Lord” “To this day” — an expression indicating the time of the biblical writer who gave the final edition to the First and Second Books of Samuel (see the introductory information about the Books of Samuel).

1 Samuel 6:19. [The sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice among the men of Beth-shemesh, for they saw the Ark of the Lord.] And He smote the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the Lord, and He killed from among the people fifty thousand and seventy men; and the people mourned, because the Lord had smitten the people with a great slaughter. The Ark of the Covenant was a holy thing, inviolable to persons not consecrated (Num 4:1), and even more so to the idle curiosity of the crowd.

1 Samuel 6:20. And the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh said: Who is able to stand before the Lord, this Holy God? and to whom shall He go away from us? “Who among sinful people can stand before the accusing holiness of the Lord” and the retributive justice of His right hand?

1 Samuel 6:21. And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying: The Philistines have returned the Ark of the Lord; come down, and bring it up to you. Kiriath-jearim — a city lying to the northeast of Beth-shemesh and to the northwest of Jerusalem, on the way to Shiloh, the then location of the tabernacle.