Based on a widespread superstition, the Philistine lords directed the people to make likenesses of the plagues that had afflicted them—“five golden tumors and five golden rats, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For,” they said, “the same plague was on all of you and on your lords.”
These wise men recognized that a mysterious power accompanied the ark. Yet they did not counsel the people to turn from their idolatry to serve the Lord. They still hated the God of Israel, though His judgments had compelled them to submit to His authority. Such submission cannot save the sinner. The heart must be yielded to God—must be subdued by divine grace—if God is to accept our repentance.
How great is God’s patience toward the wicked! Ten thousand unnoticed mercies were silently falling on the pathway of the ungrateful and rebellious, but when they refused to listen to the voice of God in His created works and in the warnings and counsels of His word, He was forced to speak to them through judgments.
The priests and the soothsayers urged the people not to imitate the stubbornness of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and thus bring still greater afflictions on themselves. These religious leaders now proposed a plan with which everyone agreed. The ark, with the golden trespass offering, was placed on a new cart, to avoid all danger of defilement. Two milk cows that had never worn a yoke were attached to the cart. Their calves were shut up at home and the cows were left free to go where they pleased. If the ark returned to the Israelites in this manner by way of Beth Shemesh, the nearest city of the Levites, the Philistines would take this as evidence that the God of Israel had done this great evil to them. “But if not,” they said, “then we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance.”
When they were set free, the cows turned from their young and took the direct road to Beth Shemesh. Not guided by any human hand, the patient animals kept on their way. The divine Presence accompanied the ark safely to the very place chosen by the Philistines.
The men of Beth Shemesh were reaping in the valley, “and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and stood there; a large stone was there. So they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.” The Philistines had followed the ark “to the border of Beth Shemesh” and had seen its reception. The plague had stopped, and they were convinced that their calamities had been a judgment from the God of Israel.
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