1 Samuel 6
6
1And the ark of Jehovah is in the field of the Philistines seven months,
2and the Philistines call for priests and for diviners, saying, ‘What do we do to the ark of Jehovah? let us know wherewith we send it to its place?’
3And they say, ‘If ye are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, ye do not send it away empty; for ye do certainly send back to Him a guilt-offering; then ye are healed, and it hath been known to you why His hand doth not turn aside from you.’
4And they say, ‘What [is] the guilt-offering which we send back to Him?’ and they say, ‘The number of the princes of the Philistines — five golden emerods, and five golden mice — for one plague [is] to you all, and to your princes,
5and ye have made images of your emerods, and images of your mice that are corrupting the land, and have given honour to the God of Israel; it may be He doth lighten His hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land;
6and why do ye harden your heart as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? do they not — when He hath rolled Himself upon them — send them away, and they go?
7‘And now, take and make one new cart, and two suckling kine, on which a yoke hath not gone up, and ye have bound the kine in the cart, and caused their young ones to turn back from after them to the house,
8and ye have taken the ark of Jehovah, and put it on the cart, and the vessels of gold which ye have returned to Him — a guilt-offering — ye put in a coffer on its side, and have sent it away, and it hath gone;
9and ye have seen, if the way of its own border it goeth up to Beth-Shemesh — He hath done to us this great evil; and if not, then we have known that His hand hath not come against us; an accident it hath been to us.’
10And the men do so, and take two suckling kine, and bind them in the cart, and their young ones they have shut up in the house;
11and they place the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer, and the golden mice, and the images of their emerods.
12And the kine go straight in the way, on the way to Beth-Shemesh, in one highway they have gone, going and lowing, and have not turned aside right or left; and the princes of the Philistines are going after them unto the border of Beth-Shemesh.
13And the Beth-Shemeshites are reaping their wheat-harvest in the valley, and they lift up their eyes, and see the ark, and rejoice to see [it].
14And the cart hath come in unto the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemeshite, and standeth there, and there [is] a great stone, and they cleave the wood of the cart, and the kine they have caused to ascend — a burnt-offering to Jehovah.
15And the Levites have taken down the ark of Jehovah, and the coffer which [is] with it, in which [are] the vessels of gold, and place [them] on the great stone; and the men of Beth-Shemesh have caused to ascend burnt-offerings and sacrifice sacrifices in that day to Jehovah;
16and the five princes of the Philistines have seen [it], and turn back [to] Ekron, on that day.
17And these [are] the golden emerods which the Philistines have sent back — a guiltoffering to Jehovah: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;
18and the golden mice — the number of all the cities of the Philistines — for the five princes, from the fenced city even unto the hamlet of the villages, even unto the great meadow on which they placed the ark of Jehovah — [are] unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemeshite.
19And He smiteth among the men of Beth-Shemesh, for they looked into the ark of Jehovah, yea, He smiteth among the people seventy men — fifty chief men; and the people mourn, because Jehovah smote among the people — a great smiting.
20And the men of Beth-Shemesh say, ‘Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God? and unto whom doth He go up from us?’
21And they send messengers unto the inhabitants of Kirjath-Jearim, saying, ‘The Philistines have sent back the ark of Jehovah; come down, take it up unto you.’
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1 Samuel 6: YLT98
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maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society
1 Samuel 6
6
The Philistines Return the Ark
1The Ark of the Lord remained in Philistine territory seven months in all. 2Then the Philistines called in their priests and diviners and asked them, “What should we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how to return it to its own country.”
3“Send the Ark of the God of Israel back with a gift,” they were told. “Send a guilt offering so the plague will stop. Then, if you are healed, you will know it was his hand that caused the plague.”
4“What sort of guilt offering should we send?” they asked.
And they were told, “Since the plague has struck both you and your five rulers, make five gold tumors and five gold rats, just like those that have ravaged your land. 5Make these things to show honor to the God of Israel. Perhaps then he will stop afflicting you, your gods, and your land. 6Don’t be stubborn and rebellious as Pharaoh and the Egyptians were. By the time God was finished with them, they were eager to let Israel go.
7“Now build a new cart, and find two cows that have just given birth to calves. Make sure the cows have never been yoked to a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but shut their calves away from them in a pen. 8Put the Ark of the Lord on the cart, and beside it place a chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors you are sending as a guilt offering. Then let the cows go wherever they want. 9If they cross the border of our land and go to Beth-shemesh, we will know it was the Lord who brought this great disaster upon us. If they don’t, we will know it was not his hand that caused the plague. It came simply by chance.”
10So these instructions were carried out. Two cows were hitched to the cart, and their newborn calves were shut up in a pen. 11Then the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors were placed on the cart. 12And sure enough, without veering off in other directions, the cows went straight along the road toward Beth-shemesh, lowing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
13The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they saw the Ark, they were overjoyed! 14The cart came into the field of a man named Joshua and stopped beside a large rock. So the people broke up the wood of the cart for a fire and killed the cows and sacrificed them to the Lord as a burnt offering. 15Several men of the tribe of Levi lifted the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors from the cart and placed them on the large rock. Many sacrifices and burnt offerings were offered to the Lord that day by the people of Beth-shemesh. 16The five Philistine rulers watched all this and then returned to Ekron that same day.
17The five gold tumors sent by the Philistines as a guilt offering to the Lord were gifts from the rulers of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 18The five gold rats represented the five Philistine towns and their surrounding villages, which were controlled by the five rulers. The large rock#6:18 As in some Hebrew manuscripts and Greek version; most Hebrew manuscripts read great meadow or Abel-haggedolah. at Beth-shemesh, where they set the Ark of the Lord, still stands in the field of Joshua as a witness to what happened there.
The Ark Moved to Kiriath-Jearim
19But the Lord killed seventy men#6:19 As in a few Hebrew manuscripts; most Hebrew manuscripts read 70 men, 50,000 men. Perhaps the text should be understood to read the Lord killed 70 men and 50 oxen. from Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the Lord. And the people mourned greatly because of what the Lord had done. 20“Who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?” they cried out. “Where can we send the Ark from here?”
21So they sent messengers to the people at Kiriath-jearim and told them, “The Philistines have returned the Ark of the Lord. Come here and get it!”
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Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
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