Chapter 1.
THE DESTRUCTION THAT CAME UPON THE PHILISTINES, AND UPON
THEIR LAND, BY THE WRATH OF GOD ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR HAVING CARRIED THE ARK
AWAY CAPTIVE; AND AFTER WHAT MANNER THEY SENT IT BACK TO THE HEBREWS.FJAJ 6.3
1. WHEN the Philistines had taken the ark of the Hebrews captive, as
I said a little before, they carried it to the city of Ashdod, and put
it by their own god, who was called Dagon, (1) Dagon,
a famous maritime god or idol, is generally supposed to have been like
a man above the navel, and like a fish beneath it.
as one of their spoils; but when they went into his temple the next morning
to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to the ark,
for he lay along, as having fallen down from the basis whereon he had stood:
so they took him up, and set him on his basis again, and were much troubled
at what had happened; and as they frequently came to Dagon and found him
still lying along, in a posture of adoration to the ark, they were in very
great distress and confusion
At length God sent a very destructive disease
upon the city and country of Ashdod, for they died of the dysentery or
flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them very suddenly; for
before the soul could, as usual in easy deaths, be well loosed from the
body, they brought up their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten,
and what was entirely corrupted by the disease
And as to the fruits of
their country, a great multitude of mice arose out of the earth and hurt
them, and spared neither the plants nor the fruits
Now while the people
of Ashdod were under these misfortunes, and were not able to support themselves
under their calamities, they perceived that they suffered thus because
of the ark, and that the victory they had gotten, and their having taken
the ark captive, had not happened for their good; they therefore sent to
the people of Askelon, and desired that they would receive the ark
among them
This desire of the people of Ashdod was not disagreeable to
those of Askelon, so they granted them that favor
But when they had gotten
the ark, they were in the same miserable condition; for the ark carried
along with it the disasters that the people of Ashdod had suffered, to
those who received it from them
Those of Askelon also sent it away from
themselves to others: nor did it stay among those others neither; for since
they were pursued by the same disasters, they still sent it to the neighboring
cities; so that the ark went round, after this manner, to the five cities
of the Philistines, as though it exacted these disasters as a tribute to
be paid it for its coming among them.FJAJ 6.4
2. When those that had experienced these miseries were tired out with
them, and when those that heard of them were taught thereby not to admit
the ark among them, since they paid so dear a tribute for it, at length
they sought for some contrivance and method how they might get free from
it: so the governors of the five cities, Gath, and Ekron, and Askelon,
as also of Gaza, and Ashclod, met together, and considered what was fit
to be done; and at first they thought proper to send the ark back to its
own people, as allowing that God had avenged its cause; that the miseries
they had undergone came along with it, and that these were sent on their
cities upon its account, and together with it
However, there were those
that said they should not do so, nor suffer themselves to be deluded, as
ascribing the cause of their miseries to it, because it could not have
such power and force upon them; for, had God had such a regard to it, it
would not have been delivered into the hands of men
So they exhorted them
to be quiet, and to take patiently what had befallen them, and to suppose
there was no other cause of it but nature, which, at certain revolutions
of time, produces such mutations in the bodies of men, in the earth, in
plants, and in all things that grow out of the earth
But the counsel that
prevailed over those already described, was that of certain men, who were
believed to have distinguished themselves in former times for their understanding
and prudence, and who, in their present circumstances, seemed above all
the rest to speak properly
These men said it was not right either to send
the ark away, or to retain it, but to dedicate five golden images, one
for every city, as a thank-offering to God, on account of his having taken
care of their preservation, and having kept them alive when their lives
were likely to be taken away by such distempers as they were not able to
bear up against
They also would have them make five golden mice like to
those that devoured and destroyed their country (2) Spanheim
informs us here, that upon the coins of Tenedos, and those of other cities,
a field-mouse is engraven, together with Apollo Smintheus, or Apollo, the
driver away of field-mice, on account of his being supposed to have freed
certain tracts of ground from those mice; which coins show how great a
judgment such mice have sometimes been, and how the deliverance from them
was then esteemed the effect of a divine power; which observations are
highly suitable to this history.
to put them in a bag, and lay them upon the ark; to make them a new cart
also for it, and to yoke milch kine to it (3) This
device of the Philistines, of having a yoke of kine to draw this cart,
into which they put the ark of the Hebrews, is greatly illustrated by Sanchoniatho's
account, under his ninth generation, that Agrouerus, or Agrotes, the husbandman,
had a much-worshipped statue and temple, carried about by one or more yoke
of oxen, or kine, in Phoenicia, in the neighborhood of these Philistines.
See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 27 and 247; and Essay on the Old Testament,
Append. p. 172.
but to shut up their calves, and keep them from them, lest, by following
after them, they should prove a hinderance to their dams, and that the
dams might return the faster out of a desire of those calves; then to drive
these milch kine that carried the ark, and leave it at a place where three
ways met, and So leave it to the kine to go along which of those ways they
pleased; that in case they went the way to the Hebrews, and ascended to
their country, they should suppose that the ark was the cause of their
misfortunes; but if they turned into another road, they said, "We
will pursue after it, and conclude that it has no such force in it."FJAJ 6.5
3. So they determined that these men spake well; and they immediately
confirmed their opinion by doing accordingly
And when they had done as
has been already described, they brought the cart to a place where three
ways met, and left it there and went their ways; but the kine went the
right way, and as if some persons had driven them, while the rulers of
the Philistines followed after them, as desirous to know where they would
stand still, and to whom they would go
Now there was a certain village
of the tribe of Judah, the name of which was Bethshemesh, and to that village
did the kine go; and though there was a great and good plain before them
to proceed in, they went no farther, but stopped the cart there
This was
a sight to those of that village, and they were very glad; for it being
then summer-time, and all the inhabitants being then in the fields gathering
in their fruits, they left off the labors of their hands for joy, as soon
as they saw the ark, and ran to the cart, and taking the ark down, and
the vessel that had the images in it, and the mice, they set them upon
a certain rock which was in the plain; and when they had offered a splendid
sacrifice to God, and feasted, they offered the cart and the kine as a
burnt-offering: and when the lords of the Philistines saw this, they returned
back.FJAJ 6.6
4. But now it was that the wrath of God overtook them, and struck seventy
persons (4) These
seventy men, being not so much as Levites, touched the ark in a rash or
profane manner, and were slain by the hand of God for such their rashness
and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20;
but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand
in this one town, or small city, I know not. See Dr. Wall's Critical Notes
on 1 Samuel 6:19.
of the village of Bethshemesh dead, who, not being priests, and so not
worthy to touch the ark, had approached to it
Those of that village wept
for these that had thus suffered, and made such a lamentation as was naturally
to be expected on so great a misfortune that was sent from God; and every
one mourned for his own relation
And since they acknowledged themselves
unworthy of the ark's abode with them, they sent to the public senate of
the Israelites, and informed them that the ark was restored by the Philistines;
which when they knew, they brought it away to Kirjathjearim, a city in
the neighborhood of Bethshemesh
In this city lived one Abinadab, by birth
a Levite, and who was greatly commended for his righteous and religious
course of life; so they brought the ark to his house, as to a place fit
for God himself to abide in, since therein did inhabit a righteous man.
His sons also ministered to the Divine service at the ark, and were the
principal curators of it for twenty years; for so many years it continued
in Kirjathjearim, having been but four months with the Philistines.FJAJ 6.7