1 Samuel 4:6

6 The Philistines heard the sound of the war cry and asked, "What's this loud shout in the Hebrews' camp?" When the Philistines discovered that the ark of the Lord had entered the camp,

1 Samuel 4:6 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 4:6

And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout
For it being so loud as to make the earth ring, it was heard in the camp of the Philistines, which might not be at any great distance from the camp of Israel; how far from each other were Aphek and Ebenezer is not certain;

they said, what meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of
the Hebrews?
they could not conceive what should be the reason of it, seeing they had no occasion to shout for joy, having been lately defeated; and a shout is made generally just before a battle is begun, and the onset made, or when victory is obtained; neither of which was the case now:

and they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp:
this they understood by spies, which they sent to find out the meaning of the shout; which is more probable than that they came to the knowledge of it by deserters; seeing it is not very likely that any Israelites would desert to the Philistines.

1 Samuel 4:6 In-Context

4 So the people sent [men] to Shiloh to bring back the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who dwells [between] the cherubim. Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

5 When the ark of the covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all the Israelites raised such a loud shout that the ground shook.

6 The Philistines heard the sound of the war cry and asked, "What's this loud shout in the Hebrews' camp?" When the Philistines discovered that the ark of the Lord had entered the camp,

7 they panicked. "The gods have entered their camp!" they said. "Woe to us, nothing like this has happened before.

8 Woe to us, who will rescue us from the hand of these magnificent gods? These are the gods that slaughtered the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.