Unintentionally Humorous Texts: The "Cow”-Vangelists?

Introduction: Who would have thought that the lowing of two cows would mean something wonderful for Israel? Something wonderful did happen!

Text: 1 Samuel 6:7-12, KJV: 7 Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: 8 And take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. 9 And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.

10 And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: 11 And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. 12 And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.

The history: The first chapters of First Samuel tell of Samuel’s miraculous birth, how he was given to the LORD by his mother Hannah, and how he assisted Eli the priest. Chapter 4 tells how the Ark of the Covenant was hauled to the battlefield and captured (!) by the Philistines. Then chapter 5 speaks to the discomfort of Dagon, the (chief?) “god” of the Philistines. Eventually the Philistines shipped the Ark from one city to another but experienced some very troubling things.

By the time of chapter 6, there were some leaders who realized, “Hey, we’ve been doing this wrong, and maybe we ought not be keeping this thing???” but they didn’t know how to get the Ark back to Israel. That’s humorous enough, as the Philistines could have done any number of things such as send a delegation to Israel (say, you guys want your Ark back? We’re done with it!) or even have some of the leaders send it back personally. Maybe other ideas were floated.

But the “strategy” they finally came up with was to take a pair of nursing cows (“milch kine”, KJV), take these cows away from their calves, and hitch the pair of cows to a cart where they had placed the Ark and a box (NASV, “coffer” KJV) of various gold articles. The theory was that if these cows traveled the “straight and narrow” from Ekron (1 Samuel 5:10-12) to Beth-Shemesh, then the LORD (God of Israel) had really done this. Otherwise, they could always say “it was just chance or coincidence”.

A word about the topography of lay of the land. Part of the way would be easy, going through relatively level ground, but the last several miles would be uphill and a challenge for any human or animal. Take a look at this map to get an idea (https://bibleatlas.org/full/ekron.htm).

Clearly they didn’t know much about the God of Israel!

The humor

Probably to everyone’s surprise, the pair of cows left their calves and began heading straight for Beth-Shemesh, a border town then but still part of Israel. As mentioned, leaving Ekron the journey would be easy but then those last few miles would be going uphill.

The cows didn’t travel alone, though, as verse 12 says the “lords of the Philistines” went after them, the cows, until the border of Beth-Shemesh. They, like the men of Beth-Shemesh, were about to receive a most interesting announcement!

The two cows “lowed” or mooed as they went along! I don’t know much about cattle—they pretty much sound alike to me—but those who are more knowledgeable would probably be able to know the difference between a cow of his own herd versus one that wasn’t. At any rate, these two cows announced, in their own special way, that “The Ark of the Covenant is back!”

Now, when the men of Beth-Shemesh heard and saw the Ark, “they rejoiced (verse 13)” and promptly made a burnt offering using the wood and the cows as the materials. There is no word of condemnation here, just a recognition that the Ark of the Covenant was back in the hands of Israel where it belonged.

But none of this would have happened without the two “cow-vangelists” making the announcement to get the people’s attention!

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).