1 Samuel 6:5-15

5 "So you shall make likenesses of your tumors and likenesses of your mice that ravage the land, and ¹you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps ²He will ease His hand from you, ³your gods, and your land.

6 "Why then do you harden your hearts ⁴as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had severely dealt with them, ⁵did they not allow the people to go, and they departed?

7 "Now therefore, take and ⁶prepare a new cart and two milch cows on which there ⁷has never been a yoke; and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home, away from them.

8 "Take the ark of the LORD and place it on the cart; and put ⁸the articles of gold which you return to Him as ⁹a guilt offering in a box by its side. Then send it away that it may go.

9 "Watch, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to ¹⁰Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then ¹¹we will know that it was not His hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance."

10 Then the men did so, and took two milch cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.

11 They put the ark of the LORD on the cart, and the box with the golden mice and the likenesses of their tumors.

12 And the cows took the straight way in the direction of ¹²Beth-shemesh; they went along ¹³the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines followed * them to the border of Beth-shemesh.

13 Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they raised their eyes and saw the ark and were glad to see it.

14 The cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stood there where there was a large stone; and they split the wood of the cart and ¹⁴offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.

15 ¹⁵The Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the box that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on the large stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices that day to the LORD.

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1 Samuel 6:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 6

In this chapter we are told the Philistines advised with their priests what to do with the ark, and wherewith to send it home, 1Sa 6:1,2 whose advice was to send with it a trespass offering, golden images of emerods and mice, and to put it on a new cart, and the images in a coffer on the side of the ark, and draw it with two cows, 1Sa 6:3-8, and gave them a token whereby they might know whether they had been smitten by the God of Israel or not, 1Sa 6:9 which advice they took, and acted in all things according to it; and the lords of the Philistines accompanied the ark to the border of Bethshemesh, 1Sa 6:10-12, where they of Bethshemesh received it with joy, and offered the kine for a burnt offering to the Lord, and the Levites took care of the ark and presents in it, and the lords of the Philistines returned home, 1Sa 6:13-18, but they of Bethshemesh looking into the ark were smitten of God, upon which they sent to the men of Kirjathjearim to fetch it from them, 1Sa 6:19-21.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 15

1. Joshua 7:19; 1 Chronicles 16:28, 29; Isaiah 42:12; Jeremiah 13:16; John 9:24; Revelation 14:7
2. 1 Samuel 5:6, 11
3. 1 Sam 5:3, 4, 7
4. Exodus 7:13; Exodus 8:15, 32; Exodus 9:34; Exodus 14:17
5. Exodus 12:31
6. 2 Samuel 6:3
7. Numbers 19:2; Deuteronomy 21:3, 4
8. 1 Samuel 6:4, 5
9. 1 Samuel 6:3
10. Joshua 15:10; Joshua 21:16
11. 1 Samuel 6:3
12. 1 Samuel 6:9
13. Numbers 20:19
14. 2 Samuel 24:22; 1 Kings 19:21
15. Joshua 3:3

Footnotes 2

[a]. Lit "them"
[b]. Lit "way"