Unwanted Items—the Ark Of The Covenant

Unwanted Items—The Ark of the Covenant

Introduction: To “frame” this illustration, we’d need to look at a couple of chapters in 1 Samuel. In chapter 4, the writer tells us of Israel’s decision, foolish as it was, to bring the Ark of the Covenant out of the Tabernacle and down to the battlefield. Those who did this broke any number of God’s Laws, but I won’t go into detail. The worst thing is that whoever took the Ark out of the Tabernacle was either foolish, fearful, or just plain “I don’t care, let’s do this”. Remember that once the Ark was in place, it was supposed to be left in the Holy of Holies until the LORD told Israel to move it.

And there is no record of that in chapter 4.

We can read the rest of the story, how that the Hebrews were rejoicing that the Ark was coming (and why did they think this?) but the Philistines basically overpowered the Hebrews, routing them—Israel lost 34,000 foot soldiers in the two battles, plus the Ark (see 1 Samuel 4:1-11). The Philistines left Israel and took the Ark back to their homeland.

This is when things got interesting!

Text: 1 Samuel 5:1-12, KJV: 1 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. 2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 3 And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day.

6 But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. 7 And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god. 8 They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither. 9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. 10 Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. 11 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. 12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Now why, do you think, that this object, captured in battle, would become something that none of the victors wanted to keep? I’m surprised they kept the Ark as long as they did, considering everything that happened during that, shall we say, captivity!

The first place where the captured ark was taken was Ashdod (5:1-5), and the Philistines placed it in the temple of Dagon, their primary deity. As best I recall, Dagon was half-man and half-fish, not a mermaid but a mer-man, kind of like some fictional or cartoon characters, except they believed he was real. The rest of chapter 5 shows a bit of humor, from our perspective, in that twice the Philistines found out it didn’t pay to mess with articles belonging to the One True God. The KJV has its record of how the palms of Dagon’s hands were cut off as though someone (or Someone) had taken a knife or sword and chopped off Dagon’s hands. Imagine the surprise when the priests of Dagon noticed this, not once, but twice! Even worse, the population of Ashdod was afflicted with “emerods” or tumors of some kind.

We’re not told how long the Ark stayed in Ashdod, but it must have been long enough for the “lords” of the Philistines to say, “Send it to Gath (Goliath’s home town, by the way)”—anything to get the Ark out of town, fast! But the same thing happened in Gath and in Ekron when the people of Gath decided they didn’t want anything to do with the Ark, either!

At any rate, the Ark was in the land of the Philistines for seven months (6:1) and the one universal effect was physical suffering. Eventually the Philistine priests came up with a solution, which makes me wonder why they kept the Ark for as long as they did! The solution is as simple as it gets: send back the Ark, and add a “trespass offering (6:4)” of golden articles.

They also added a simple test: take two cows, which had just given birth to their calves, hitch both of them up to a wooden cart, and see if they go to Beth-Shemesh in Israel’s territory. This would be about a 12- to 15-mile journey towards the southeast, and the ground seemed to be gradually higher in elevation as any traveler would find out. There’s a good map, or illustration of the land and terrain found online at https://bibleatlas.org/full/ekron.htm. The priests figured, if the cows took the Ark in the cart to Beth-Shemesh, then it truly belonged to the God of Israel; if not, they might have shrugged, “it was only by chance any of this happened to us (paraphrased).”

Well, even if the Philistines didn’t want the Ark of the Covenant, Israel surely did, and in an upcoming message we’ll see how God brought the Ark home, back to Israel!

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