4 1 Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Eben-ezer : 2 and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel : and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines : and they slew 3 of the army in the field about four thousand men. And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to-day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that it may 4 come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh, and they brought from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which sitteth upon the cherubim : and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the 5 covenant of God. And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all 6 Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp. 7 And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, 8 Woe unto us ! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us ! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? these are the gods that smote the Egyptians 9 with all manner of plagues in the wilderness. Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you : quit your-

10 selves like men, and fight. And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon his seat by the way side watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man hastened, and came and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were set, that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, How went the matter, my son? And he that brought the tidings answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years. And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered: and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and brought forth; for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast brought forth a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.

5 1 Now the Philistines had taken the ark of God, and they brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod. And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 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 lay cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 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.

Verses 6-12. Divine visitation upon the men of Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron, of suffering and death.

6 1, 2 And the ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? shew us wherewith we shall send it to its place. And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a guilt offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.

Verses 4-9. Farther counsel as to the guilt offering and sending the ark upon a new cart drawn by two milch kine.

10. And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: and they put the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their tumors. And the kine took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along the high way, 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. And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered up the kine for a burnt offering unto the LORD. And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the LORD. And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.

Verses 17, 18. Names of cities that returned a guilt offering.

19. And he smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people seventy men, and fifty thousand men: and the people

20 mourned, because the LORD had smitten the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us? And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come ye down, and fetch it up to you. 7 1 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD.

4 : 1-22. The Israelites, unable to withstand their enemies, sent for the ark at Shiloh; and having, in imitation of the Philistines, who carried their gods with them to war, brought the ark into camp, they renewed the fight. But the Philistines, although greatly alarmed by this movement, bravely encouraged one another, in that mutual exhortation long after quoted and applied to Christians by the Apostle Paul: “Be strong and quit yourselves like men;” and the result was the complete discomfiture of the Israelites, the capture of the ark, the death of Hophni and Phinehas—the sons of Eli who carried it—and then the death of Eli himself and of the wife of Phinehas, at the heart-rending tidings. N. C. B.

Not the priesthood only, but the very nation had made itself loathsome before God; and, consequently, terrible judgments from the Lord must needs witness to his hatred of sin and to his justice in its punishment; and were moreover demanded as the last hopeful means for the moral reformation of so many as were not yet hopelessly hardened. Hence came this one day of accumulated horrors. A lost battle; Israel panic-smitten and fleeing; thirty thousand of her dead strewn on the field of battle; the two sons of Eli, acting priests, slain in one day; the ark of God in the hands of uncircumcised Philistines; the aged Eli and the wife of Phinehas dead—the dying mother giving the key-note to the sad wail of that day: “The glory is departed from Israel!” Thus it behooved the God of Israel to testify that he is of purer eye than to behold iniquity; that he can never wink at such flagrant abominations, and, least of all, in those who minister at his altar.

3,4. All their memory of God’s mighty deeds of old was summed up in a superstitious hope from the mere symbol of His presence, which they profaned even while they trusted to its help. The ark was brought from Shiloh by Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, fit ministers of such a sacrilegious act. H. C.—Here was no consulting of the ark which they were about to fetch, no inquiry of Samuel whether they should fetch it, but a headstrong resolution of presumptuous elders to force God into the field, and to challenge success. Bp. Hult.

If any ritualities, or sacraments, or religious symbols ever carried with them the Divine presence, this ark of the covenant did so, for it was God’s resting-place and visible abode. If the mere presence of anything sacred to God can save men in their sins and despite of their sins, men might surely expect that the ark of God’s covenant would carry victory with it, and that God would not allow his name to “go to protest” before idolaters. If there be any saving power in the mere ritualities and sacraments of our holy religion, here was a splendid opportunity to test and display it. H. C.

It was not of God they thought, the living God, but only of the ark. The ark has been changed into a fetish; the name of it is to be their deliverer. To redeem the Israelites from their error, they must learn that the ark is powerless if God forsakes them, and that the symbol cannot save without the living presence. In this stern lesson God uses their enemies as teachers. In this case the Philistines were on the better side. It was not man-against God, but man against falsehood under His name, and the battle ended as one might anticipate. Natural human courage proved itself stronger than corrupted religion, and hypocrisy was broken and scattered. Ker.

9. These were brave words of brave men whom the desperateness of the emergency moved only to more heroic exertions. “Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines.” It was the Lord’s purpose that they should conquer in this war, and therefore were they thus inspired to accomplish the purposes of his will. They did conquer. Israel was defeated—the priests were slain—the ark was taken. Thus did the Lord rebuke the vain confidence of the Israelites, and the dishonor they had brought upon his name before the Philistines, by the sanction which their proceedings had given to the pagan delusion, that the presence of God was inseparably connected with aught made with hands. Therefore the ark was suffered to be made captive by the unbelievers.

13-22. The manner in which this sad tale is told far excels anything of the kind which the wide range of literature can furnish. It is one of those traits of pure and simple grandeur in which the Scriptures are unequalled. Kit.

17. Ill news doth ever either run or fly. The man of Benjamin which ran from the host hath soon filled the city with outcries, and Eli’s ears with the cry of the city. The good old man sits in the gate, and hears the news of Israel’s discomfiture and his sons’ death, though with sorrow, yet with patience; but when the messenger tells him of the ark of God taken, he can live no longer: that word strikes him down backward and kills him in the fall: no sword of a Philistine could have slain him more painfully; neither know I whether his neck or his heart were first broken. Bp. H.—So fell the high-priest and judge of Israel, when he had lived within two of a hundred years; so fell the crown from his head, when he had judged Israel about forty years; thus did his sun set under a cloud, thus were the folly and wickedness of those sons of his, whom he had indulged, his ruin at last. Thus does God sometimes set marks of his displeasure upon good men in this life, who have misconducted themselves, that others may hear, and fear, and take warning. A man may die miserably, and yet not die eternally; may come to an untimely end, and yet the end be peace. H.

This tragic history shows that nothing can be more pitiable than the perversion of the Divine paternal instinct to the ruin of the child and the misery of the parent. The affection is often so partial that it is practically blind. The heart becomes softened into a weak and guilty pity, so that at times the noblest act of parental self-restraint seems a sort of harshness. Parental indulgence is a vice which looks much like a virtue; and while there is no vice so self-justifying there is none more terrible in its penalties. Mercer.

21. Saying, The glory is departed from Israel.** She is insensible of the death of her father, her husband and herself, in comparison with the loss of the ark of God; calls her son Ichabod, or, “There is no glory;” and says with her last breath, “The glory is departed from Israel.” She cares nothing for a posterity which was to want the ark of God; she cares nothing for a son, come into the world of Israel, when God was gone from it; and she departs willingly from them, from whom God was departed. Not outward magnificence, nor wealth, nor the favor of the mighty, but the presence of God in his ordinances, were the glory of Israel; the withdrawing of which was a greater judgment than destruction. Bp. H.

22. “The ark of God is taken.” Four times in a short chapter does that sentence appear. It is a wail, a funeral dirge. Eli fell back in a swoon and died when he heard it; his daughter-in-law, wife of the dissolute and slain Phinehas, died in childbirth, and named her son Ichabod—no glory. It was enough to break any heart. The lowest possible point of humiliation had been reached. It was the first of the three captivities that have fallen upon the Jews. The second came when Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the armies of Babylon, when the ark was captured a second time, never to be restored. The third came when Jerusalem was crushed by the legions of Titus and the Jews were scattered to the ends of the earth. Nothing is more touching than the weekly gathering of a few Jews at what is called “The Wailing Place” in Jerusalem, where they weep and moan, caressing meanwhile the temple wall with their hands and kissing it with their lips. The key note to that wail was given by Jeremiah, whose Lamentations has been called “the funeral dirge of the theocracy,” when the fire and sword of Nebuchadnezzar had done their ruthless work. And five hundred years before Jeremiah uttered his elegy, with broken heart and streaming eyes, the piercing agony had gone through Israel’s heart as the words were repeated from lip to lip, “The ark of God is taken.” It produced widespread consternation. It was the palpable judgment of God upon the wickedness of the nation. Behrends.

5:1-5. The Philistines had been permitted by the Lord thus far to triumph, for the accomplishment of his own high purposes. And it remained for Him now to vindicate the honor of his own great name, equally from the despair of the Israelites, and profane exultation of the Philistines. The latter, indeed, by making it a triumph of their own god over the God of Israel, rendered it inevitable that he should move his terrible right arm to redeem his name from reproach. Kit.—Having punished Israel that betrayed the ark, by giving it into the hands of the Philistines, he will next deal with those that abused it, and will fetch it out of their hands again. Thus even the wrath of man shall praise him; and he is bringing about his own glory, even then when he seems to neglect it. H.

Dagon had never so great a day, so many sacrifices, as now, that he seems to take the God of Israel prisoner. What a spectacle was this, to see uncircumcised Philistines laying their profane hands upon the testimony of God’s presence! to see the glorious mercy-seat under the roof of an idol! to see the two cherubim spreading their wings under a false god! O foolish Philistines, could ye think that the same house could hold God and Dagon? Could ye think a senseless stone a fit companion and guardian for the living God? Had ye laid your Dagon upon his face prostrate before the ark, yet would not God have endured the indignity of such a lodging; but now that ye presume to set up your carved stone, equal to his cherubim, go read your folly in the floor of your temple, and know that He which cast your god so low can cast you lower. Bp. II.

6-12. Not the god Dagon only, but the men of Ashdod were smitten sorely. “The hand of the Lord destroyed them and smote them with tumors.” This scourge was so severe that they said, We cannot have this ark of God among us. So they called a council of Philistine lords, and it was agreed to try it in Gath. “They carried the ark to Gath, and there the Lord smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had tumors in their secret parts.” H. C.—Their bodies were attacked by a loathsome and painful disease, probably boils, which are a characteristic symptom of the Oriental plague. The latter explanation agrees better with the infectiousness and fatality of the scourge. A. F. K.—The Gittites sent on the ark to their neighbors of Ekron. The Ekronites were in great alarm. They cried, “They have sent the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people!” Their dismal prognostics were verified. Many died; many were smitten with tumors; while an army of field mice devoured their harvest. Gaz.

6:1-6. For seven months the ark was carried about through the cities of the Philistines; and at length they resolved to send it back. Under the advice of their priests and diviners, whom it is most interesting to find remonstrating with them for hardening their hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh had done, they sent with it five golden images of mice and five such of the tumors as a trespass-offering. P. S.—It is clear that these golden tumors and mice were representations in form of the plagues under which they suffered so terribly, and that their purpose was to “give glory to the God of Israel”—a very explicit acknowledgment of his supremacy, and of their own defeat and suffering before him. By these tokens of their suffering they said, to their own shame—“We cannot stand before these manifestations of Jehovah’s presence and power.”

7-12. As if to make it more sure whether these judgments were fortuitous, or came from the hand of Israel’s God, they said—Make a new cart; harness to it two young heifers with young calves, never in yoke before; shut up the calves at home; then start them. If they take the way to Israel’s cities, and go on despite of their instincts toward their young confined at home, then may ye know that God is with his ark, and that these sore afflictions are from his hand. The experiment was decisive. The young cows moved off by the route to Israel, lowing for their calves as they went, and halted not till they brought up at Bethshemesh, a city of Israel. H. C.—This was, all things considered, no less than a miracle. That cattle unaccustomed to the yoke should draw so even, so orderly, and still go forward; that, without any driver, they should go from home, and from their own calves; that, without any director, they should go the straight road to Bethshemesh, a city eight or ten miles off, never miss the way, never turn aside into the fields to feed themselves, nor turn back home to feed their calves, yet as they went on lowing for their young ones. H.

13. The people of Bethshemesh were at work in the fields, it being harvest-time, when they caught the first sight of the approaching ark. Their delight and exultation at the return of that glory which had departed from Israel cannot well be described. Kit.

14,15. Burnt-offerings and sacrifices rightly testified their gratitude upon the reception of the ark; with these also were presented the “jewels of gold” sent as a guilt-offering by the five cities of Philistia. B.

Punishment of the Men of Bethshemesh.

19. Because they had looked into the ark.** Better, because they had gazed upon the ark. The expression used signifies rather “to gaze upon with profane curiosity.”

The priests of Bethshemesh must have known that even the Levites were forbidden to look upon the furniture of the Holy of Holies upon pain of death (Nu. 4:19, 20), but instead of hastening to cover it with befitting reverence, they left it exposed to the public gaze, and brought down a judgment which was intended to vindicate the holiness of Jehovah.

Fifty thousand. It is generally agreed that there is some mistake in the text here. The anomalous order of the numerals in the Hebrew (70 men 50,000 men), and the absence of the conjunction and mark corruption. The village of Bethshemesh cannot possibly have contained such a number of inhabitants. It seems best with Josephus and some Heb. Mss. to omit 50,000. A. F. K.

A woful welcome for the ark of God into the borders of Israel. It killed them for looking upon it, who thought it their life to see it: it dealt blows and death on both hands; to Philistines, to Israelites; to both of them for profaning it, the one with their idol, the other with their eyes. It is a fearful thing to use the holy ordinances of God with an irreverent boldness. Fear and trembling become us in our access to the majesty of the Almighty. Bp. H.

7 : 1. The ark, which was the symbol and seal of God’s presence in the midst of His people, was now become an unwelcome visitant, suggestive only of danger and of displeasure. One man was found brave enough and loyal enough to open his house for its reception, and to set his son apart to guard it until such time as the breach should be healed. W. H. G.—They seem to have done all they could, and with due regard to the requirements of the law, for the custody of the sacred symbol. But Kirjath-jearim was not turned into the seat of the national worship. There is no word of sacrificial or other services being performed there. There is nothing to indicate that the annual feasts were held at this place. The ark had a resting-place there—nothing more. And this lasted for twenty years. W. G. B.

For twenty years, as it seems, from this decisive victory Philistia held her cruel heathen away over the people of Jehovah. Where Samuel was during this interval, we know not. It was doubtless needful for him to be thus for a season withdrawn from action and observation. His holy childhood and his prophetic youth needed calm, silence, introspection, and secret communion with God, to mature the great strength of his after-life. Like Paul in Arabia, like a greater than Paul at Nazareth after that communing in the temple, he was hidden away by God; hidden, it would seem, like the son of Mary when he left Jerusalem with her, for alalmost twenty years before he was manifested to Israel. Wilberforce.

So ended the period, defined as that during which “the house of God was in Shiloh.” So ended the still wider period of the first division of the history of the Chosen People, from Moses to Eli, in the overthrow of the first sanctuary by the Philistines, as the second division and overthrow was to terminate in the fall of the second sanctuary, the Temple of the Jewish monarchy, by the armies of Babylon; and the third in the still vaster destruction of the last Temple of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus. (Read Jer. 7 : 12, 14 ; 26 : 6.)—This first period of Jewish history had been a period varied and shifting in detail, but with this common feature,—that it was a time of wandering and of strife, of danger and of deliverance, of continual and direct dependence on the help of God alone. Stanley.

In the Books of Samuel and the Kings, it is the presence or the absence of the ark which justifies everything that is normal and sufficiently explains everything that is abnormal in the history. Whether at Shiloh, or in the hands of the Philistines, at Kirjath-jearim or on Mount Zion, it is everywhere and always, “the Ark of the Covenant,” the silent witness from the period of the exodus. There is but one such ark in Israelitish history, and it renders that history in its main features, especially in its characteristic religious features, indivisible and unimpeachable. The secret of the books is the secret of the ark which stored them and between whose cherubim dwelt Jehovah of hosts. E. C. B.

ISRAEL’S TWENTY YEARS’ SERVITUDE TO PHILISTINES SUCCEEDED BY REPENTANCE UNDER SAMUEL’S APPEALS. AT HIS INTERCESSION GOD GIVES ISRAEL DECISIVE VICTORY. TWENTY YEARS OF SAMUEL’S JUDGESHIP. ISRAEL ASK A KING.