1 Samuel 6:19

19. He smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark Some irregularities may be observed in their hastily using the cart for their wood, and milch kine for a burnt offering; but these may be apologized for on the supposition that the cart and kine could never be put to nobler uses, and might, if preserved, be put to meaner and unworthy usage. But to look into the ark, which implies the removal of the cover and the golden cherubim, (Exodus 25:20-21,) and to do this in the open field, and in full view of all the multitudes that came flocking in from the surrounding harvest fields this was the foulest kind of sacrilege, and justly merited the severest judgment of Heaven.

Fifty thousand and threescore and ten men It is possible, indeed, that the remarkable events here described might have called together such an immense host as is here named, but it is extremely improbable, and the message sent to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, (1 Samuel 6:21,) which was only six or seven miles distant, implies that they had not until then heard of the return of the ark from Philistia. The Septuagint has the same as the Hebrew, but other versions vary. Syriac and Arabic, Five thousand and seventy. Chaldee, Of the elders of the people seventy men, and of the congregation fifty thousand. Vulgate, Of the people (populo) seventy men, (viros,) and fifty thousand of the common people, (plebis.) An old Rabbinical tradition, with which some more modern expositors partially coincide, says that only seventy men were slain, but, being elders or chief men, they were of as much importance as fifty thousand ordinary persons. But such explanation is hardly worth recording. The Hebrew is, literally, he smote among the people seventy men, fifty thousand men, and some explain this as meaning seventy men of fifty thousand; but this leaves the main difficulty of the passage unsolved, namely, how to account for the presence of fifty thousand men. There is, probably, a corruption in the text. Three codices of Kennicott, and Josephus, omit the words fifty thousand men, and it is, perhaps, best to regard them as an interpolation.