Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter the Sixth. Synopsis of the Chapter
The Philistines send the ark back to Israel with five golden emerods and as many golden mice, that they may escape the punishment of the emerods and mice. They therefore put it on a cart, drawn not by horses but by two cows, testing whether the cows go straight toward Israel or turn aside elsewhere, that they may know whether this plague came upon them from the God of Israel or by chance. The cows with the ark go straight to Israel to the borders of Bethsames. The Bethsamites receive it, and offer the cows in holocaust; but of them God smote 50 thousand, because they had looked too curiously at the ark. Wherefore the Bethsamites resolve to send the ark to Cariathiarim.
1. Now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. 2. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying: What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? shew us how we shall send it back to its place. They said: 3. If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but render to him what you owe for sin, and then you shall be healed: and you shall know why his hand departeth not from you. 4. They said: What is it that we ought to render to him for the trespass? And they answered them: 5. According to the number of the provinces of the Philistines, you shall make five golden emerods, and five golden mice: for the same plague hath been upon you all, and upon your lords. And you shall make the similitudes of your emerods, and the similitudes of the mice that have destroyed the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel: if perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you, and from your gods, and from your land. 6. Why do you harden your hearts, as Egypt and Pharao hardened their hearts? was it not after he was struck, that he then let them go, and they departed? 7. Now therefore take and make a new cart, and two kine that have calved, upon which no yoke hath been laid, tie them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 8. And you shall take the ark of the Lord and lay it on the cart, and the vessels of gold which you have paid him for the trespass, you shall put in a casket at the side thereof: and let it go that it may depart. 9. And you shall see: and if it go up by the way of its own coasts, towards Bethsames, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, we shall know that it is not his hand that hath touched us, but it hath happened by chance. 10. They did therefore in this manner: and taking two kine that suckled their calves, they yoked them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 11. And they laid the ark of God upon the cart, and the casket that had in it the golden mice and the similitudes of the emerods. 12. And the kine took the straight way that leadeth to Bethsames, and they went on the same way, going and lowing, and they turned not aside, neither to the right hand nor to the left: and the lords of the Philistines followed them as far as the borders of Bethsames. 13. Now the Bethsamites were reaping wheat in the valley, and, lifting up their eyes, they saw the ark, and rejoiced when they saw it. 14. And the cart came into the field of Josue the Bethsamite, and stood there. And there was a great stone, and they cut the wood of the cart, and laid the kine upon it, a holocaust to the Lord. 15. And the Levites took down the ark of God, and the casket that was at the side of it, in which were the vessels of gold, and put them upon the great stone: and the men of Bethsames offered holocausts, and sacrificed victims that day to the Lord. 16. And the five lords of the Philistines seeing it, returned to Accaron that day. 17. And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for the trespass to the Lord: Azotus one, Gaza one, Ascalon one, Geth one, Accaron one; 18. and the golden mice, according to the number of the cities of the Philistines, of the five provinces, from the walled city to the village that was without wall, and to the great Abel, upon which they set down the ark of the Lord, which was there unto this day in the field of Josue the Bethsamite. 19. And he smote of the men of Bethsames, because they had seen the ark of the Lord: and he slew of the people seventy men, and fifty thousand of the common people. And the people mourned, because the Lord had smitten the people with a great slaughter. 20. And the men of Bethsames said: Who shall be able to stand before the Lord this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 21. And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Cariathiarim, saying: The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord, come down and fetch it up to you.
1. SEVEN MONTHS.—So the Hebrew, Chaldee and the rest. Wrongly therefore Josephus has four months. In the country of the Philistines, the Septuagint, in the field, which Theodoret explains thus: “Since,” he says, “no city dared to receive the ark, they left it outside in the open air; for so the Historian taught: For the ark of the Lord, he says, was in the field of the aliens seven months: but after they thought that, the ark remaining outside, they were free from the plagues sent by God, God brought punishments upon inanimate things also. For He sent a multitude of mice upon the vines and crops, which destroyed all their fruits.”
So also Procopius: which understand not as if the plague of mice then began, but that it was then confirmed and increased. Hence it is gathered that the ark was taken by the Philistines in September, which month among the Hebrews was solemn and in great part sacred. For in it, besides the feast of the New Moon, they celebrated the feast of Trumpets, and of Tabernacles for eight days, likewise the feast of Expiation, and of the Assembly or Gathering, as is plain from Leviticus 23. Wherefore in that month all things were full of offerings and victims, which, because the sons of Heli and many of the people imitating them had violated and profaned them, hence God willed that the ark be taken in the same month, that they might be punished in the month in which they had sinned more gravely against it. That this is so is clear from the fact that the ark was taken in Philistia for seven months, which having elapsed it was sent back to Bethsames when the wheat was being reaped, as is said verse 13. Now the harvest in Palestine is made at the end of April: reckon now in reverse order seven months from April, and you will fall on September just mentioned.
3. RENDER TO HIM WHAT YE OWE FOR SIN.—Understand the sin of carrying off the ark, and thus of irreverence brought upon the God of the Hebrews, especially in the opinion and conscience of the Philistines, says Abulensis. For otherwise, if the Philistines were waging a just war against the Hebrews, it was not a grave sin to carry off the ark also religiously with the rest of the spoils. But the true and grave sin, for which they were scourged by God, was that they had set the ark with their idol Dagon, nay had subjected it to Dagon, and dedicated it as a trophy: but they, being idolaters and worshippers of Dagon, did not reckon this a sin; and therefore God smote them, that they might thence learn to reckon this a sin, and that the ark is greater than Dagon.