1 Samuel 5:6

THE PHILISTINES GET ENOUGH OF THE ARK OF GOD

"The hand of the Lord was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, "The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us; for his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god." So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, "What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel"? They answered, "Let the ark of the god of lsrael be brought around to Gath." So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. But after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic; and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out upon them. So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, "They have brought to us the ark of the God of Israel to slay us and our people." They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not slay us and our people." For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was heavy there. The men who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven."

This summary of the Philistines' sad experience with the ark of the God of Israel needs hardly any comment at all. There are many things about which our curiosity would certainly like to be satisfied; but the great message of the passage is as clear as the sun at noon on a clear day at perihelion! That message is the power and superiority of the God of Israel over all things in heaven or upon earth.

"He afflicted them with tumors" (1 Samuel 5:6). What was this disease? There is little doubt that it was anything other than an epidemic of the bubonic plague, the black death that wiped out a major fraction of the human race in the mid-14th century. Edward Gibbon wrote that, "The moity of mankind perished." Will and Ariel Durant stated that one-third of the human race perished, and Barbara Tuckman writes (in 1978) that, "Modern demographers have settled, for the area extending from India to Iceland, around the same figure expressed by Froissart's words. `a third of the world died.'"[20] We have introduced this here to emphasize the size of the disaster that came to the Philistines. Again, from Tuckman, the mortality rate in all the cities of Europe ranged. "Between 20% and 90% of the whole population."[21] This occurred in a matter of a very few days. Just imagine what a devastation like this would have produced in the way of a panic (1 Samuel 11).

The conclusion of scholars that the disease which struck the Philistines was bubonic plague is well supported; and John Willis has a full discussion of this.[22] A key factor in the evidence is that the disease was likely spread by rats, indicated by the Philistines making golden images of those creatures ("The Hebrews did not distinguish between mice and rats.")[23] Willis quoted the Septuagint (LXX) and the Vulgate versions which declare that, "Their territory swarmed with rats. There was death and destruction all through the city." Of course, rats were a part of the necessary pre-conditions for development of the bubonic plague. Another element in the deadly triangle was the Cheops flea. The flea-infested rat died of the disease; the flea then bit a man, and he died.

The tumors that broke out on the people were often in the armpits, the groins, etc. Psalms 78:66 has this in the KJV, "He smote his enemies in the hinder parts." Keil interpreted this to mean that, "He smote them with boils on the anus."[24] The Vulgate here reads, "He smote them in the more secret parts of their posteriors."[25]

Returning to the great swarm of rats which was a key element in the judgment of God against the Philistines, that would have been a double plague. The rats not only carried the bubonic plague infection but devastated the fields and ate up the crops as well.

There is a definite progression in the severity of the plagues of Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron as the ark made its way to those cities successively; and this should have been expected.

"The longer the Philistines resisted and refused to recognize the chastening hand of the living God in the plagues inflicted upon them, the more severely would they be punished, that they might be brought at last to see that the God of Israel, whose sanctuary they still wanted to keep as a trophy of their victory over Israel, was the omnipotent God who was able to destroy his enemies."[26]

"Let it return to its own place" (1 Samuel 5:11). Willis pointed out that this could not mean, "back to Shiloh," for the Philistines had destroyed that. It meant that, "They desired to put the ark back into the hands of the Israelites."[27]

"And the cry of the city went up to heaven" (1 Samuel 5:12). Not only did the Philistines pray to God for deliverance, God heard their prayer!

"The next chapter indicates that the Philistines were delivered from their calamities, which was possible only by divine intervention. This shows that God hears the prayers of other nations as well as those of his chosen people, and that he cares about all mankind."[28]

One other thing should be noted before we leave this chapter. It is plain from what is written here that the Philistines worshipped the idol itself, and not any so-called `god' that the idol represented, a sin from which Israel was in large measure protected by God's admonition against their making any kind of a religious image.