May 16, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Ark is Returned to Israel
Scripture: 1 Samuel 5-6 (NIV)
1 After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. 3 When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. 5 That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.
6 The Lord’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation on them and afflicted them with tumors. 7 When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy on us and on Dagon our god.” 8 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, “What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?”
They answered, “Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.
9 But after they had moved it, the Lord’s hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. 10 So they sent the ark of God to Ekron.
As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to us to kill us and our people.” 11 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people.” For death had filled the city with panic; God’s hand was very heavy on it. 12 Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.
1 When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months, 2 the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”
3 They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it back to him without a gift; by all means send a guilt offering to him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand has not been lifted from you.”
4 The Philistines asked, “What guilt offering should we send to him?”
They replied, “Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. 5 Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and give glory to Israel’s god. Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land. 6 Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?
7 “Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. 8 Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way, 9 but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us but that it happened to us by chance.”
10 So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. 11 They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors. 12 Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they rejoiced at the sight. 14 The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and there it stopped beside a large rock. The people chopped up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. 15 The Levites took down the ark of the Lord, together with the chest containing the gold objects, and placed them on the large rock. On that day the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord. 16 The five rulers of the Philistines saw all this and then returned that same day to Ekron.
17 These are the gold tumors the Philistines sent as a guilt offering to the Lord—one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. 18 And the number of the gold rats was according to the number of Philistine towns belonging to the five rulers—the fortified towns with their country villages. The large rock on which the Levites set the ark of the Lord is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.
19 But God struck down some of the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they looked into the ark of the Lord. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the Lord had dealt them. 20 And the people of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?”
21 Then they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up to your town.”
Devotional
The Philistine army was having no problem defeating the Israelite army. But they had no power over the ark of God’s covenant. Curiously, they sent it on its way with a gift of five gold tumors and five gold rats, representing the plagues which were wreaking havoc on the five Philistine rulers and their people.
In the classic film, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Indiana Jones and Nazi Germans outmaneuvered one another, thinking that possessing the ark would make them invincible. Apparently, they forgot to read 1 Samuel 4. Still, in the movie all kinds of bad things happened to those who tried to steal it away. For this, they should have consulted 1 Samuel 5-6, where broken idols and skin diseases and seventy corpses attested to God’s power and authority.
In and of itself, the ark of the covenant was a box. It was made of and filled with materials found on earth. It was a box. It was not God.
Yet it was the ark of God. It was not the thing itself, but how they treated it that led to their downfall. The Israelites put their two most corrupt priests in charge of it. The Philistines treated it like a magic wand, shoving it into the temple of a false idol. Once returned, more Israelites curiously popped open the lid to gawk at the contents when only the Levites were authorized to do so. In every case, they were treating the ark of God’s covenant like any other idol.
Nothing in our physical world is God. But everything has been made by God.
1 Timothy 4:4-5 says, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”
How should we treat church buildings? How should we look after nature? How should we interact with people, even those we don’t like? How should we take care of ourselves?
Poem
Know This
God does not need an armored guard
Nor soldiers strong for fighting
God does not need wise counselors
To give His mind a-righting
Though God may use us, make it known
God can fight battles on His own
And thus preserve His glorious throne
God’s pow’r is un-surpassing
God’s presence causes gods to fall
Without a word they topple
God’s presence causes arms to fail
The proud and strong to wobble
Creator of each human form
His presence ‘fore each one was born
He knows those who will be transformed
And those who will reject Him
So put aside your prideful boasts
Your empty ego praises
Were not the Lord strong at our side
No pow’r could ever raise us
Out of the enemy’s held wrist
Out of the grave’s defying fist
So, Christian, ponder and know this
It’s only God who saves us
