✝
← Bible
ARCBLIVREKJVVBL

1 Samuel 6

KJV · Chapter 6/31

1And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months.

2And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place.

3And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.

4Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

5Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

6Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

7Now 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:

8And 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.

9And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth–shemesh, 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.

10And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

11And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

12And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth–shemesh, 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.

13And 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.

14And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth–shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord.

15And 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.

16And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.

17And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the Lord; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Askelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;

18And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the Lord: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Beth–shemite.

19And he smote the men of Beth–shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.

20And the men of Beth–shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? and to whom shall he go up from us?

21And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath–jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the Lord; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

After seven months of plagues, the Philistines decide to return the ark to Israel with offerings of gold as a guilt offering, testing whether the cows pulling the cart would go on their own toward Israel—which is what happened.

Explanation

The test devised by the Philistine priests and diviners—using cows with newborn calves, going against their maternal instinct to stay near their young, to see if they would head toward Israel on their own—was an attempt to determine, within the knowledge of the time, whether the plagues were truly caused by the God of Israel or were mere coincidence. The fact that the cows went straight ahead, lowing (against their nature), all the way to Beth-shemesh convinced even the pagan Philistines themselves of the power of the Hebrew God. The death of the men of Beth-shemesh for looking inside the ark (v.19) reinforces that even the people of Israel, upon recovering the sacred object, needed to treat it with fear and reverence, not with profane curiosity.

Fun facts

  • The gold offerings shaped like tumors and mice (v.4-5) followed an ancient practice sometimes called 'votive homeopathic magic,' in which replicas of the problem were offered to the offended god as a way of asking for healing—a practice documented in various ancient Mediterranean cultures.
  • The number of dead at Beth-shemesh (v.19) varies among ancient manuscripts, with some Hebrew texts preserving the exact number as 'seventy men, fifty thousand men,' a textual problem that scholars attribute to a copying error over the centuries of transmission.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. 1 Samuel 6:1Seven months of repeated plagues, city after city, is how long it takes the Philistines to finally decide to return the ark — it was not a quick decision.
  2. 1 Samuel 6:2Priests and diviners were the religious experts consulted in this kind of crisis — the same kind of adviser also appears in the Egyptian court in stories like Joseph’s.
  3. 1 Samuel 6:3Sending an offering along with the ark, instead of returning it empty, reflects a common ancient logic: appeasing the offended god with a gift, the way one makes peace with someone wronged.
  4. 1 Samuel 6:4Five golden replicas for each of the five Philistine lords, representing the five main cities, shows that the guilt was seen as collective, belonging to the whole Philistine nation, not just the city that suffered first.
  5. 1 Samuel 6:5Making gold images of their own sores and of the mice ravaging the land was a common ancient practice called imitative magic: representing the harm in order to symbolically hand it back to the god responsible and obtain healing.
  6. 1 Samuel 6:6The Philistine diviners themselves cite the story of the Exodus as a warning: hardening one’s heart against this God, as Pharaoh did, only prolongs the suffering without changing the final outcome.
  7. 1 Samuel 6:7Using cows that had never been placed under a yoke and forcibly separating them from their calves was the perfect test: animal instinct would drive those cows to return and nurse, not head off alone down a strange road. If they went straight to Israel pulling the cart, only God could be guiding them.
  8. 1 Samuel 6:8The detailed plan here sets up the test in the next verse: placing the ark and the offering on a cart pulled by cows with no human driver, to see whether they go on their own all the way to Israel.
  9. 1 Samuel 6:9The test with the cows was designed to eliminate any doubt: only divine intervention could explain cows just separated from their calves choosing, on their own, the right road into Israelite territory.
  10. 1 Samuel 6:10The Philistines carry out exactly the test agreed on — separating the cows from their own calves was the hardest part, since animal instinct would pull them back home.
  11. 1 Samuel 6:11The gold replicas of the mice and the sores went along with the ark as the symbolic payment of guilt agreed on at the start of the chapter.
  12. 1 Samuel 6:12The cows keep “lowing” — a sign of distress at being separated from their own calves — but even so they go straight to Beth-shemesh without turning aside: exactly the outcome that would prove, beyond doubt, the hand of God behind it.
  13. 1 Samuel 6:13The harvest scene, an everyday and peaceful task, is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the ark — the contrast between the routine of the field and the supernatural event heightens the surprise.
  14. 1 Samuel 6:14Using the cart’s own wood as firewood for the sacrifice, and the cows that pulled it as the offering, was a practical and symbolic way of consuming everything that had touched the ark on its journey back.
  15. 1 Samuel 6:15It is the Levites, not just any local resident, who handle the ark here — a care that contrasts with the disaster at the end of the chapter, when ordinary people look inside it without that same reverence.
  16. 1 Samuel 6:16The Philistine lords personally witness the outcome of the test before heading home — proof that there had been no trickery or coincidence mattered enough to them to see it with their own eyes.
  17. 1 Samuel 6:17The list names the five main cities of the Philistine confederation — the same group that appears repeatedly in the Old Testament as the core of Philistine territory.
  18. 1 Samuel 6:18Mentioning that the stone “remaineth unto this day” is another example of the narrator anchoring the story to a physical landmark that readers of his own time could still visit.
  19. 1 Samuel 6:19Fifty thousand and seventy men killed for looking inside the ark is a huge number for a small town like Beth-shemesh — many translators and scholars think it is an ancient copying error and that the original number was only seventy. Either way, the episode shows the ark as something dangerous to treat with too much familiarity.
  20. 1 Samuel 6:20After the shock of mass death, the question from the people of Beth-shemesh is sincere: they recognize that the ark is too holy to keep nearby without risk, and they are already looking for where to send it.
  21. 1 Samuel 6:21Kirjath-jearim will guard the ark for the next twenty years, counted at the start of chapter 7, until David finally brings it to Jerusalem much later in 2 Samuel.

Chapters

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Our apps

Our apps →

Bible in Stories

The Bible told as a story, with audio and videos.

📱 Get the app

World in Stories

True stories of humanity that sound made up.

App StoreGoogle Play

Feito! Pequenas Vitórias

A light daily routine for people who lose track of the day.

App StoreGoogle Play