The Ark is Back - 1st Samuel 6

At the end of chapter 5, the Philistines were afflicted with a serious disease process in all the cities where the ark of the covenant was taken. The KJV just says “emerods” which is footnoted to mean tumors or boils which is an interesting description. It would be weird to have the people erupt in tumors, boils would make more sense, but the IM gives a pretty good suggestion. Later in chapter 6 we learn that this plague was also accompanied by rats or mice, which lends credence to this suggestion. The IM notes “many died, and those who did not seem to have endured great suffering.” The IM also says that Josephus indicates that is was a “very destructive disease’ involving dysentery, bleeding, and severe vomiting… There severity of the disease and the fact that rodents were involved lead many scholars to conclude that what smote the Philistines was bubonic plague.” Whatever it was, it was severe enough that the people of these cities knew something was wrong and suddenly, to the point that they put together the arrival of the ark as the time when their troubles started.

The leadership of these 5 Philistine cities meet together with their priests and “diviners” to discuss what to do about the ark and all these problems coming with it, and they decide to return it to Israel. TB points out that returning spoils of war to their defeated enemies, especially in the form of their captured god, would have been a huge dishonor to them, but they didn’t care, it was that bad. The also decide that just returning it wasn’t enough, they had to also send back a “trespass offering.” TB points out that a trespass offering or a reconciliation offering was a Levitical, Judaic way procedure but either these priests knew enough about the Hebrew religion so that they knew about this or the Spirit prompted them to do it, the latter makes more sense to me. The trespass offering would be “five golden emerods, and five golden mice” all put on to a “new cart,” pulled by two mild cows that have never been yoked before. TB notes that it’s unlikely that there were 5 golden tumors and 5 golden rats, it’s more likely that the interpretation was 5 mounds of gold fashioned into the shape of rats. The word emerod could be interpreted as tumor or mound. While coming up with what to include in the offering, the priests persuaded the leaders to be generous saying, “wherefore then do you harden your hearts, and the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people god, and they departed?” They remembered the stories about the plagues in Egypt caused by Israel’s God and didn’t want to be as stubborn as Pharaoh and bring all that suffering down on themselves.

hey loaded up the wagon with all the gold, the ark, any other gifts that I missed, and yoked two milk cows to pull it. What’s interesting is that they weren’t going to send a team of people to drive it to the Israel territory because “if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he that done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a hance that happened to us.” Basicallly what they are saying is if these cows go into Israel to return the ark, then we will know that this was Israel’s God who afflicted us, but if the cows don’t take it to Israel, then we will know it was just a coincidence.” TB explains their rationale, saying, “Having never been yoked means not only had these cows not worked, but that they had not been TRAINED to pull a cart. In addition the 2 mil cows that were chosen had young calves. The notion was that if they attached two untrained cows to the cart (meaning that the cows had no idea what to do), and (against nature) the two cows would also leave their nursing and bellowing calves behind and willingly walk away (as a team) pulling a cart along the main road into Israelite territory, then it could not possibly have been coincidence; it had to be the God of Israel that was directing the whole situation.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened, the people set everything up and the cows walked straight into Israel to return the ark, and the people concluded that they were right and it was Israel’s God who had done all this.

The Israelites were harvesting their wheat, they see over the hill a rider-less wagon being pulled by two dairy cows and it must have been quite a sight to see. The city that the wagon went into was one of the 48 cities that were supposed to be set apart for the Levites which was apt because the ark was returning to the Levites, however this particular city did not have the specific Levite family that was allowed to handle the ark, and it’s possible that that family was disconnected from their responsibilities of the priesthood. When the ark returns, the people swarm it and start messing with it, and decide that they should chop up the cart to use as firewood for a burnt offering and kill the two cows and offer them as burnt offerings. This makes sense to them because they see it as a miracle that the ark was returned and want to make an offering of thanks to God.

Unfortunately for them, God does not accept their offering, and kills 70 of them right away. The KJV says that 50,700 are killed by both TB and the IM reject that number and say that almost certainly that’s a mistranslation and that only 70 were killed. But 70 people, men presumably, being killed right away by God was still pretty significant, the question is why did this happen? The IM suggests that because so much of the ark was made out of gold, the word “looked” should have actually been translated to mean “to look upon or at a thing with lust of malicious pleasure,” indicating that these 70 men saw the ark and made plans for it in a way that would only benefit them personally, which was a big problem. The IM says, “it is possible that these residents of Beth-shemesh looked upon the ark with covetous eyes, or at least upon the golden emerods and mice that were sent with it.” This explanation would make a lot of sense, they wanted to use the things of God, sacred things, to benefit them personally, this is a huge problem.

TB’s explanation is different but makes a lot of sense too. His explanation is that because these Levites were not from the family that was explicitly allowed to handle the ark of the covenant, them messing with is, taking it off the cart, maybe opening it, etc, was not allowed by God and therefore they were killed for handling the ark outside of their authorization. He also noted that because the priesthood was so defunct at this point, these poor Levites probably didn’t even know that the ark could only be handled by specific people, which is unfortunate because these poor people were punished for something they didn’t even know was wrong. The people were so excited that the ark had returned, they handled it carelessly and there was significant consequences for that. TB says, “These enthusiastic Levites began dealing with God’s Ark in thoroughly unauthorized ways and instant death for 70 of them was the result.”

When I was listening to TB’s explanation, I thought “death for acting in a way that they didn’t know was wrong is too severe,” but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that if God had not acted so drastically then a lack of respect or reverence would have probably taken over the care of the ark and it’s possible that the full measure of repentance would not have happened with it. The people knew all of a sudden, just how serious God is, just how powerful, and just how strict they needed to be with obeying His commandments. And life or death according to God’s perspective looks a lot different to Him than it does to us, it’s just one eternal round for Him, even though we see it differently. All this death caused the people to cry “who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?” This phrase reminds me of that part in Ether when the people cry “who can stand before the army of Shiz?” I like that it’s Biblical phraseology in the Book of Mormon. So the Levites send a message to the people in Kirjath-Jearim telling them that the ark is back and they need to come get it.