The Ark is Brought Back to Israel Samuel part 3 Last time, we saw how Eli, the priest of Israel, along with his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas were punished by the Lord for being abusive leaders to Israel. Eli was not abusive himself, but he was neglectful by not punishing his unruly sons. The Lord told Samuel that He will punish Eli and his sons, and He did punished them when Israel lost to the Philistines. 1Sa 3:13 (BBE) And you are to say to him that I will send punishment on his family for ever, for the sin which he had knowledge of; because his sons have been cursing God and he had no control over them. We don t need to have our own family in order to be neglectful of our own house. Our spiritual house is our mind, and if we don t have any control of our thoughts, these wild thoughts will turn into words and actions. When we don t have self-control, we are likened to a city which is broken into by thieves and left without walls. Pro 25:28 (ESV) A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. A city without walls can easily be captured by its enemies. When we don t have the holy spirit, we are easily controlled by bad spirits and easily convinced by bad people. We are told to be as wise as serpents, meaning we should not be so ignorant and gullible to other s lies. There are a lot of bad people out there who wants to take advantage of you, so make sure that your parents know who you keep company with. Don t be irritated when we ask you about your friends and about the things you do with them. We are just making sure you are not associating with people who will badly influence you. After Israel s defeat and the capture of the ark of God, Phinehas widow named their son Ichabod which literally means no glory. 1Sa 4:21 (ESV) And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory has departed from Israel! because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. 1Sa 4:22 And she said, The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured. Now that the Lord had gotten rid of Israel s corrupt leaders, He will now appoint Samuel to lead His chosen people. In the meantime, we are told what happened to the Philistines after they have captured the ark of God. 1Sa 5:1 (CEV) The Philistines took the sacred chest from near Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod.
1Sa 5:2 They brought it into the temple of their god Dagon and put it next to the statue of Dagon, which they worshiped. 1Sa 5:3 When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, they found the statue lying facedown on the floor in front of the sacred chest. They put the statue back where it belonged. 1Sa 5:4 But early the next morning, it had fallen over again and was lying facedown on the floor in front of the chest. The body of the statue was still in one piece, but its head and both hands had broken off and were lying on the stone floor in the doorway. 1Sa 5:5 This is the reason the priests and everyone else step over that part of the doorway when they enter the temple of Dagon in Ashdod. How does this scene happen today? The ark of God symbolizes His words and His power. Now when we take His words and we twist them to make them say what we want it to say, it is like taking the ark of God and putting it besides the idol of our hearts. One thing is sure to happen, the pure words of God will witness against our false idols, our own interpretation of the Bible. That is what is symbolized by the statue of Dagon falling twice, and the second time, its head and both hands broken off. This means our own works based on our false beliefs are useless in saving us, they are as useless as this idol of Dagon without a head and without hands. Psa 135:15 (KJV) The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Psa 135:16 They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; Psa 135:17 They have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouths. Psa 135:18 They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them. And what did these Philistines in Ashdod do? Did they stop worshiping the false god Dagon after seeing this miraculous sight? No! They still enter the temple of Dagon, but they step over the part of the doorway where they saw the head and hands of the statue. How do we live this out today? We do this when we ignore or step over verses in the Bible that clearly go against what we believe. We hold on to our false beliefs until our eyes are completely darkened and our faith becomes mainly based on traditions. 1Sa 5:6 (BBE) But the hand of the Lord was hard on the people of Ashdod and he sent disease on them through all the country of Ashdod. 1Sa 5:7 And when the men of Ashdod saw how it was, they said, Let not the
ark of the God of Israel be with us, for his hand is hard on us and on Dagon our god. 1Sa 5:8 So they sent for all the lords of the Philistines to come together there, and said, What are we to do with the ark of the God of Israel? And their answer was, Let the ark of the God of Israel be taken away to Gath. So they took the ark of the God of Israel away. 1Sa 5:9 But after they had taken it away, the hand of the Lord was stretched out against the town for its destruction: and the signs of disease came out on all the men of the town, small and great. 1Sa 5:10 So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of the town made an outcry, saying, They have sent the ark of the God of Israel to us for the destruction of us and of our people. 1Sa 5:11 So they sent and got together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go back to its place, so that it may not be the cause of death to us and to our people: for there was a great fear of death through all the town; the hand of God was very hard on them there. 1Sa 5:12 And those men who were not overtaken by death were cruelly diseased: and the cry of the town went up to heaven. The box of the covenant contains the manna or the miraculous bread which fed Israel while they traveled through the desert. It also contains the tablets of stones containing the ten commandments given to Moses and the staff of Aaron which budded. These three items represent the word of God. The word of God is a curse to our old man, as much as the box of the covenant is proving to be a curse to the Philistines. Like the Philistines, we want nothing to do with God s words at first. They passed it around from town to town. Finally, after seven months of severe diseases, the Philistines called their own priests and sorcerers and asked them what to do. Here is their advice: 1Sa 6:3 (CEV) "Don't send it back without a gift," the priests and fortunetellers answered. "Send along something to Israel's God to make up for taking the chest in the first place. Then you will be healed, and you will find out why the LORD was causing you so much trouble." 1Sa 6:4 "What should we send?" the Philistines asked. The priests and fortunetellers answered: There are five Philistine rulers, and they all have the same disease that you have.
1Sa 6:5 So make five gold models of the sores and five gold models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. If you honor the God of Israel with this gift, maybe he will stop causing trouble for you and your gods and your crops. 1Sa 6:6 Don't be like the Egyptians and their king. They were stubborn, but when Israel's God was finished with them, they had to let Israel go. The Lord did not let Israel conquer all the nations around them when they arrived in Canaan. The Lord did this to use these nations to test Israel if they will continue to worship Him or if they are going to worship the gods of these nations (Jdg 2:22 23). This is the reason the Lord let these Philistines continue to be around Israel. This is also the same reason why God does not conquer all our sins immediately. He wants us to remain dependent on Him and not to boast that we are doing good by our own strengths. 1Sa 6:7 (BBE) So now, take and make ready a new cart, and two cows which have never come under the yoke, and have the cows yoked to the cart, and take their young ones away from them: 1Sa 6:8 And put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the gold images which you are sending as a sin-offering in a chest by its side; and send it away so that it may go. 1Sa 6:9 If it goes by the land of Israel to Beth-shemesh, then this great evil is his work; but if not, then we may be certain that the evil was not his doing, but was the working of chance. 1Sa 6:10 And the men did so; they took two cows, yoking them to the cart and shutting up their young ones in their living-place: 1Sa 6:11 And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the chest with the gold images. There are lots of symbols here. The five golden models of sores and rats. The new cart that they made to carry the ark of the Lord. The two cows which have never come under the yoke. These cows have babies that still fed on their milk, but they separated the babies from them. So the reasoning of these priests is that the tendency of these cows is to go back to their babies. But if they go towards Israel, to the border town of Beth-shemesh, then this will prove that this great evil was the work of the Lord. What happened? 1Sa 6:12 (BBE) And the cows took the straight way, by the road to Bethshemesh; they went by the highway, not turning to the right or to the left, and the sound of their voices was clear on the road; and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the edge of Beth-shemesh.
The cows went straight to Israel! They carried the ark of God back to the people of which it belongs. Remember, these cows have never carried a cart before, so there was no way they went to Beth-shemesh by memory. No one was driving them. That is no one but God! This is a great witness of God s total control of everything, good and evil. These false priests and fortunetellers were probably shocked when the cows found their way to Israel. They were probably expecting them to either go back to their babies or just stay there or get lost. They said if they don t reach Israel, then it is not the God of Israel that gave them the disease, it happened by chance. But nothing happens by chance. Everything is controlled by God. Pro 16:4 (KJV) The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. The new cart is a symbol of the new man in us who is worthy to handle God s words. The two cows are symbols of God s true witnesses who are able to deny their fleshly pulls, or going back to their babies. The five models of sores and rats are symbols of our sins being covered by God s chastening grace or correction. Jas 5:19 (MKJV) Brothers, if anyone among you err from the truth, and if anyone turns him back, Jas 5:20 know that he who turns back the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. That is how God covers our sins, by correcting us. 1Sa 6:13 (ERV) The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley. They looked up and saw the Holy Box. They were very happy to see it again. They ran to get it. 1Sa 6:14 The wagon came to the field that belonged to Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. Some Levites took down the LORD'S Holy Box and the bag that had the golden models. The Levites put the LORD'S Box and the bag that was with it on the large rock. The people of Beth Shemesh cut up the wagon and killed the cows. That day, they sacrificed the cows as burnt offerings to the LORD. 1Sa 6:16 The five Philistine rulers watched the people of Beth Shemesh do this and then went back to Ekron that same day. 1Sa 6:17 In this way the Philistines sent golden models of tumors as gifts for their sins to the LORD. They sent one golden model of a tumor for each of the Philistine towns of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 1Sa 6:18 The Philistines also sent golden models of mice. The number of these golden mice was the same number as the towns that belonged to the five Philistine rulers. These towns had walls around them, and each town had villages around it. The people of Beth Shemesh put the LORD'S Holy Box on
a rock. That rock is still in the field of Joshua from Beth Shemesh. 1Sa 6:19 (KJV) And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, 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. 1Sa 6:20 (ERV) They said, "Where is a priest who can care for the Holy Box? Where should the Box go from here?" 1Sa 6:21 There was a priest at Kiriath Jearim. The people of Beth Shemesh sent messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim. The messengers said, "The Philistines have brought back the LORD'S Holy Box. Come down and take it to your city." Not all the elect will remain faithful to God. We saw how God destroyed most of Israel (His chosen people) in the desert because of their rebellions. We saw how God punished Eli and his sons for their disobedience. And now we see the people of Beth Shemesh severely punished for looking into the ark of the Lord. If we are not faithful to the truths that we are given, then God will blind us and sooner or later, this blindness will lead us into destruction.