The Ark Returned to Israel
1 Now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months.
2 And the Philistines acalled for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it to its place.”
3 So they said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it aempty; but by all means return it to Him with ba trespass offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.”
4 Then they said, “What is the trespass offering which we shall return to Him?” They answered, a“Five golden tumors and five golden rats, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For the same plague was on all of1 you and on your lords.
5 Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that aravage the land, and you shall bgive glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will clighten His hand from you, from dyour gods, and from your land.
6 Why then do you harden your hearts aas the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He did mighty things among them, bdid they not let the people go, that they might depart?
7 Now therefore, make aa new cart, take two milk cows bwhich have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart; and take their calves home, away from them.
8 Then take the ark of the Lord and set it on the cart; and put athe articles of gold which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side. Then send it away, and let it go.
9 And watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to aBeth Shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then bwe shall know that it is not His hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance.”
10 Then the men did so; they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.
11 And they set the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the chest with the gold rats and the images of their tumors.
12 Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the ahighway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their awheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
14 Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and stood there; a large stone was there. So they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.
New King James Version®, Copyright© 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Commentaries:
No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for 1 Samuel 6:1.
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