We've been distracted by the domestic dramas of Ruth and Elkanah for a while, but there is a world out there and Israel is still at war with the Philistines. The Israelites are defeated in battle so they elect to bring the ark to the battlefield in the hope that it will turn the tide in their favour. The Philistines are afraid because they believe the gods have come against them (the fact that they speak of plural deities suggests that they know little of the Israelite religion, reminding us that ignorance has long been a barrier between cultures) but using God as a good luck charm does not work and the Israelites are defeated again.
Eli's sons die as prophesied, and in what must have seemed like the worst turn of events imaginable, the ark is captured. When Eli hears the news, he falls down and dies of a broken neck; and when his pregnant daughter-in-law hears, the shock induces labour and she dies in childbirth. The nameless woman does however live long enough to name her son son Ichabod, because the glory has departed from Israel. There's a sense of despair and hopelessness, as if the Israelites believe that the God who created the earth has been stolen away from them in a golden box. We cannot even hope to comprehend the enormity of God, and so its natural that we should think of him on a scale we can get our heads around, but we must take care not to shrink him down too much.
The Philistines take the ark to Ashdod and set it beside the statue of their god Dagon in his temple, but the next day they find that the statue has fallen face down. They put the statue back in its place, but the next day it has fallen again, and this time the head and hands have broken off. This is just a warning however, and after this the Lord's hand is heavy upon the people of Ashdod, as he brings much devastation. The rulers of the Philistines move the ark to Gath, but this city suffers in a similar fashion, and so they try to send it to Ekron. The rulers may think they can solve their problem by simply moving it around, but the people of Ekron are not so sure and resist the coming of the ark.
Finally forced to confront their troubles, the rulers of the Philistines call on their priests and diviners, who tell them to send the ark back to the Israelites with a guilt offering, which they rather bizarrely suggest should be gold models of the tumours and rats that have afflicted the cities. I get that it's symbolic, but I'm not even going to pretend to understand why they think golden tumours are an appropriate gift for anyone. The priests also ask the rulers why they have hardened their hearts as Pharaoh did, recalling the story of the Exodus. It seems unlikely that the Philistines would know a great deal about Pharoah's heart, and the Hebrew scriptures were written by Israelite scribes many years after the events they described, so I very much doubt that this conversation is verbatim anyway, but this does at least suggest that the writer has learnt the lessons of Egypt.
The Philistines place the ark and a chest containing the offering on a new cart hitched to two cows who have calved but have never been yoked and send it on its way. The priests say that if it returns to Israel then it was the Lord who brought disaster on them, in which case they will have done right in sending it back, but if it goes another way then the disaster was only chance, in which case they have no chance of stopping it. Fortunately for them, the ark finds its way back to Beth Shemesh in Israelite territory, where the people rejoice to see it and sacrifice the cows as an offering to the Lord.
This should be a happy ending, but seventy men of Beth Shemesh look into the ark of the covenant, and if you've ever seen 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark', you'll already know that doesn't end well. They are struck down by God and the people ask "who can stand in the presence of the Lord?". The implied answer is that no one can, but the truth is that everyone can. Moses may not have been able to look on God, but he could stand before him on the mountain and at the bush, and the Israelites followed God through the desert. And that's before we even consider the impact of Christ on our relationship with God. I think this incident is about respect. The Israelites could have approached God's presence with honour and humility, but instead they tried to find him in a box, and that was where they went wrong.
To wrap up this part of our story, the people of Beth Shemesh are understandably nervous about keeping the ark and send messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim, who take the ark and consecrate somebody to guard it.
No comments:
Post a Comment