1 Samuel 6 explained: The Ark Comes Back Home

Philistines seek advice (vv. 1-6)

Their priests advise sending the ark home with a guilt offering, a payment to make up for wronging this god: gold models of the tumors and rats that had struck them. Offering metal models of what afflicted you was a known way to ask for healing, and the advisers point to Egypt's fate as a warning against stubbornness.

A test with cows (vv. 7-12)

Cows never trained to pull, with their calves shut up at home, would be expected to wander or turn back toward their young. Instead they head straight for Israel's border at Beth Shemesh, lowing as they go, which by the Philistines' own test meant the disaster was not mere chance.

Welcome at Beth Shemesh (vv. 13-16)

Farmers harvesting wheat see the ark and celebrate, burning the cart as firewood and offering the cows as a sacrifice. Levites, the tribe set apart to handle holy things, set the ark on a large rock while the Philistine rulers watch and then go home to Ekron.

The gold offering listed (vv. 17-18)

The five gold tumors stand for the five main Philistine cities, and the gold rats seem to stand for all their towns and villages. The rock is mentioned as a landmark still there when the account was written, a kind of witness that this happened.

Death at Beth Shemesh (vv. 19-21)

Some townspeople looked into the ark, which Israel's law forbade, and God struck them down; the standard Hebrew text says 50,070 died, but a few manuscripts and the ancient historian Josephus say seventy, and many scholars and modern translations prefer seventy. Shaken, the people ask who can stand before so holy a God and send the ark on to Kiriath Jearim, a town on higher ground.

Key verse: 1 Samuel 6:20

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how to read God striking down people for looking into the ark, some seeing it as a just response to treating holiness carelessly and others seeing it as an ancient account told through the understanding of its own time.

Something to think about

When something unexpected happens to you, good or bad, what makes you decide whether it was chance or something more?