Shmuel Alef 6:9

9 And see: if it [the Aron Hashem] goeth up by the derech of its own territory [i.e., Eretz Yisroel] toward Beit Shemesh, then He hath done us this ra’ah hagedolah (great disaster); but if not, then we shall know that it is not His Yad that struck us; the evil came upon us mikreh (by chance, by accident).

Shmuel Alef 6:9 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 6:9

And see if it goeth up by the way of its own coast to
Bethshemesh
The nearest city to the land of the Philistines, which lay on their borders, and the borders of the tribe of Judah, (See Gill on Joshua 15:10). Now the lords of the Philistines are directed by their priests to observe, whether these kine, that drew the cart on which the ark was, took the direct road to the borders of the land of Israel, and to Bethshemesh, the nearest city that lay on that coast: if so, they might conclude then,

he hath done us this great evil;
that is, the God of Israel, whose ark this was; he had inflicted the disease of the emerods on them, and sent such numbers of mice into their fields, that had destroyed the increase of them:

but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that hath smote
us;
but that there is some other cause of it:

it was a chance that happened to us;
and so might have been the case if the ark had never been taken or detained, and to be imputed to fate, or to the stars, or some secret causes they know not of.

Shmuel Alef 6:9 In-Context

7 Now therefore make an agalah chadashah (new cart, wagon), and take two milch [milk-yielding] cows, [i.e., nursing cows] on which there hath come no ol (yoke), and hitch the cows to the agalah, and take their calves home, away from them;

8 And take the Aron Hashem, and lay it upon the agalah; and put the kelei hazahav, which ye send back to Him for an asham (trespass offering), in a box by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.

9 And see: if it [the Aron Hashem] goeth up by the derech of its own territory [i.e., Eretz Yisroel] toward Beit Shemesh, then He hath done us this ra’ah hagedolah (great disaster); but if not, then we shall know that it is not His Yad that struck us; the evil came upon us mikreh (by chance, by accident).

10 And the anashim did so; and took two milch cows, and hitched them to the agalah, and penned up their calves babayit;

11 And they laid the Aron Hashem upon the agalah, and the box with the akhbarim of zahav and the tzalmei techorim (likenesses of tumors) of theirs.