1 Samuel 6 Study Notes

6:13 Harvesting wheat was typically done around late May. The Festival of Weeks, called shavuʿoth in Hebrew (Nm 28:26-31; Dt 16:16), marked this time of ingathering and included Pentecost (Lv 23:15-16; Ac 2:1).

6:14 The text does not suggest that the people sinned in offering the cows as a burnt offering, though such offerings normally required a male without blemish (Lv 1).

6:15 Beth-shemesh was a city appointed for the Levites (Jos 21:16).

6:16 The five Philistine rulers recognized God’s hand in their troubles of the past seven months. They returned to Ekron, where presumably they reported what had happened.

6:17-18 On the Philistine cities, see note at 5:1. The expression still . . . today refers to the time 1 Samuel was written, probably early in the days of the divided kingdom.

6:19 The Masoretic Text reads “seventy men, fifty thousand men,” but many manuscripts omit the fifty thousand men, and Beth-shemesh could not have supported such a large population. The reading seventy persons, on the other hand, is undisputed. The phrase looked inside the ark may also be translated “looked at the ark” in the sense of unholy staring or gazing. The Levites should have covered the ark as soon as possible and treated it more reverently.

6:20 The people of Beth-shemesh realized their own unholiness in the presence of the Lord this holy God. The Philistines had sent the ark away; the citizens of Beth-shemesh now determined to do the same.

6:21 Kiriath-jearim was a city in Judah’s territory about fifteen miles to the east. Sending the ark there instead of to Shiloh suggests the Philistines may have overrun Shiloh after they captured the ark. Archaeological evidence indicates the city was destroyed about this time.