Monday, 15 August, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.

1 Samuel 6:6-16

⁶ Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed? ⁷ Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them. ⁸ And take the ark of the LORD and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way ⁹ and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”

¹⁰ The men did so, and took two milk cows and yoked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. ¹¹ And they put the ark of the LORD on the cart and the box with the golden mice and the images of their tumors. ¹² And the cows went straight in the direction of Beth-shemesh along one highway, lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh. ¹³ Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it. ¹⁴ The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. A great stone was there. And they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. ¹⁵ And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the box that was beside it, in which were the golden figures, and set them upon the great stone. And the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices on that day to the LORD. ¹⁶ And when the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned that day to Ekron.

The Ark of the Covenant has been captured by the Philistines. The Philistines have been taking the Ark from city to city within their territory because wherever they take it, God is visiting judgment upon them, and the inhabitants of each city demand the Ark be sent away to someone else.

It is interesting that the Philistines know the history of Israel. They know that God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt by the plagues, and so they begin to ask why they are still keeping the Ark in the face of God’s obvious judgment upon them. But there is still some doubt. The Philistines are wondering, is God in control of this situation, or is it all just coincidence? And so they devise a test of God’s providence.

They take two cows that are still nursing calves, and yoke them to a cart with the Ark of the Covenant. If the cows, contrary to their natural inclination to return to their calves, pull the cart to a specific Israelite city, Beth-shemesh, then the Philistines will accept that this is from God.

What do we learn from this?

This is not something for us to emulate in our own lives. We are forbidden to put God to the test. We are not to setup tests for God to meet in order that He will prove to us His sovereignty. But it is instructive for us to see this case in history where people did put God to the test and God graciously deigned to display His providence in the everyday affairs of life. God is sovereign over everything. He is even able to change the nature of cattle.

And if He can change the nature of cattle, He can change my nature also. This offers me great hope.

Where is Christ in this passage?

Jesus Christ is not explicitly in this passage. We can see Him as the mediator between God and man, the great High Priest, that is foreshadowed in the Ark of the Covenant. We can see Him in the sacrifice the Israelites offered to God upon the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant.

One interesting parallel to see is Satan’s temptation of Jesus Christ. The second temptation was for Jesus to throw Himself off of the temple to prove the scriptures true that angels would catch Him.

Jesus replies that we are not to setup tests of God’s providence as these Philistines did.