1 Samuel 5:1-12

THE ARK OF GOD AMONG THE PHILISTINES, 1 Samuel 5:1-12.

The Philistine conquerors are soon to find that the ark is for them a fearful booty. With great rejoicing they carry it to their great idol’s temple, as if to say, Our God is mightier than the mighty God of Israel, and we will dedicate the ark to him. But miserable honours await Dagon, and fearful plagues visit his worshippers. Terror-smitten, they carry the ark from one place to another, supposing that change of locality might check its power for evil, but all without avail, for the presence of the ark spreads plague and terror everywhere.

Here we may see why Jehovah permitted the ark to fall into the hands of these idolaters. It would prove to them, in their own land, that Jehovah’s power was not in sword nor bow, nor chariot; that the ark alone, the mere symbol of his presence, could be used by him to crush their Dagon, and smite their land and its inhabitants with plagues. Nor was this capture of the ark without its salutary lessons for Israel. They never afterwards attempted to put it to a superstitious use. Their priests had defiled the tabernacle by their impiety, and had committed sacrilege in their use of the offerings. The sanctuary seems to have become totally neglected by several of the tribes of Israel, for as “men abhorred the offering of the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:17) at Shiloh, they turned to the practice of sacrificing on high places; or else, like Micah, (Judges 17:5,) made a tabernacle of their own with graven images, and set up an independent worship. Thus Israel failed to establish a central seat of worship, as well as a central government; the Levitical service became disorganized, and the worship at Shiloh a reproach; and the Lord allowed the ark of his presence to be taken from them as a judgment for their sins. Compare Psalms 78:56-66.

“The loss and the recovery of the ark,” says Milman, “would tend powerfully to consolidate the disorganized realm. The tidings of that awful calamity, the capture of the ark, the seeming abandonment of his people by their God, would sound like a knell in the heart of every one born of Israel. From the foot of Lebanon to the edge of the desert, from the remotest pastures of Gilead to the seacoast of Asher, the dormant religious feeling would be stirred to its depths. Even those who had furtively cast their grain of incense on the altar of Baal would be roused by the terrible shock, and prostrate themselves in penitence, if not in despair. That universal religious movement, from grief, from shame, from fear, would be maddened to tumultuous excitement at the tidings, as rapidly, as widely spread, of the restoration of the inappreciable treasure Jehovah’s return in all his power and majesty to the center of his chosen people.”