1 - 7:1 The Philistines Return the ArkThe ark was in Philistine country for seven months. They don't want to return it empty, so they put a guilt offering of 5 golden tumors and 5 mice into it (according to the 5 Philistine lords - also my notes state that the reason for the mice might be that the Philistines may have believed them to be spreading the tumors.) They put the ark on a new cart carried by 2 unspoiled cows and sent it off to Beth-shemesh.
The people of Beth-shemesh were happy to see the ark. They split the wood and offered the cows as sacrifice. The Lord did slew some men who looked into the ark. The men of Kiriath-jearim came and took the ark to the house of Abinadab.
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It's funny how unholy people deal with holy things. God had told his people specific sacrifices to deal with specific issues. The Philistines thought it was "nice" to make a model of the tumors they had been afflicted with and cast them in gold to offer to God. There were 5 gold tumors representing the 5 Philistine kings. They also made gold rats because they thougth they were helping with the plague (!?). They made enought rats to represent the number of towns each king ruled.
Like I said, this sounds disgusting to me and would immediately sound like we were spitting on God to make such an offering. God wants PURE sacrifices. Even if you didn't know the specifics, anything pure would probably work. The Philistines did have the right idea to appease God and beg for forgiveness, thought.
The Philistines kept refering to the Exodus and compared themselves to the Egyptians. They knew they had offended God and that this plague was from Him.
They had one final test to ensure this was all brought on by God. The two cows had never pulled a cart before. They sent it off in the right direction and figured that God would guide them if, indeed, He was involved. If the cart strayed, they'd know God wasn't involved. Of course, the cart went directly where it should.
Because God struck down 70 men who looked into the ark (good reminder from Indiana Jones), the people of Beth Shemesh wanted to send the ark somewhere else. They sent it to Kiriath Jearim.
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