COMMENT.-There was nothing that it was so needful for Israel to learn as that

As for all the gods of the heathen, they are but idols,

But it is the LORD that made the heavens.

Therefore, though God had for the sins of His people allowed Shiloh to be desolate, and the Ark, with the Commandments, Aaron's rod, and the pot of manna, to be taken by the Philistines, and to remain with them for seven dreary months of mourning at home, He yet made His power to be known.

The Philistines believed that their Fish-god, Dagon, had captured the Ark, which they supposed to contain the gods of Israel; and though they durst not break into the mysterious chest overlaid with gold, they placed it as a trophy in the temple of Dagon, at Ashdod. But when the temple was visited in the morning, Dagon's idol had fallen, and lay before the Ark. They lifted the image into its place, but the next day on the threshold lay the head and hands. Nothing remained but the fishy tail. And yet so obstinate and foolish was the Philistine belief in the sacredness of this helpless idol, that up to the time when the history was written-probably by Samuel the threshold where these broken fragments had lain was viewed as so sacred that no one durst set foot on it! Meanwhile, the people of the city suffered from painful diseases; and it also appears that one of God's great armies of insignificant creatures was sent among them, and that their crops were ruined by multitudes of mice. At first they thought that the God of Israel specially hated Dagon, so they sent the Ark on to Gath, the country where the remains of the old Anakim or giants lived, but the disease and devastation followed it, and it was passed on to Ekron, which had a tutelary god of its own, Baal-zebub, "the Lord of Flies," but even before it arrived the plagues had come to Ekron, and the people of the place rose up and insisted that the Ark should not be brought among them.

So God's honour was declared among the heathen; and we can even see that it was for their good, for though as a nation the Philistines remained foes to Israel, yet we shall find the "Gittite," or man of Gath, and the Cherethite, or Cretan, joined to the chosen people as faithful soldiers and servants.

LESSON XLV.

THE RETURN OF THE ARK.

I SAM. vi. 2-21; vii. 1—2.

And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the LORD? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place.

And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.

Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden jewels, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

Wherefore ye shall make images for your disease, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel : peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

*

Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:

And take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer + by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.

And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.

And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their disease.

And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.

And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley : and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood

* Worked.

↑ Box.

The House of the Sun.

there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the LORD.

And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone : and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the LORD.

And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.

And these are the golden jewels which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the LORD; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Askelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;

And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel,* whereon they set down the ark of the LORD: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Beth-shemite.

And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and three score and ten men and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.

And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? and to whom shall he go up from us?

And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.

And the men of Kirjath-jearim† came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD.

And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.

COMMENT.-The Philistines, in their distress, called all their priests to tell them how to free themselves from the miseries that the presence of the Ark had brought them. They were resolved to send it away, but the priests and diviners enjoined that an offering should be made to atone for the trespass or offence that had been ignorantly committed against the Lord, whom they had learnt to believe as at least more mighty than their own god. This offering was to be a golden image commemorating the disease from which each city had suffered, and a golden mouse from every place where havoc had been made by these creatures. The priests enforced their advice by speaking of the effect, as seen in Egypt, of resisting this terrible God; but they further proposed that, to see whether miracles + The City of the Woods.

* Mourning.

truly followed it, and if it were God's will that it should return, it should be placed on a cart drawn by two cows that had never been yoked before, and would naturally be restive, and that their calves should be shut up at home. If the cows, against all nature, should draw the cart away from their home and their calves, then the Philistines would see clearly that it had verily been the Lord who afflicted them; if not, they would regard their misfortunes as common accidents of life. So the Ark was placed on the cart, and a chest besides, containing the golden figures offered by the cities and the numerous villages around them, and the cows, without a driver, went lowing on their way to Judah, the Philistines keeping in the distance to watch its course.

It was wheat harvest, and thus about the Feast of Weeks, when the reapers of the Levite town of Beth-shemesh, in the borders of Judah, lifted up their eyes, and saw the wonderful sight of the two cows bringing home the precious golden chest which had been lost for seven months. The creatures rested beside a great stone, and here the Levites took down the Ark, and (as it seems) the Philistines broke up the cart and offered the cows as a sacrifice, they being hallowed by the work they had done, and the stone was called the stone of Abel, or "mourning," probably because the Philistines there mourned for the affliction of their land, and entreated for it to be removed.

Thus it was that, all alone, without one priest or one defender, the Ark was delivered from the hands of the heathen without a human hand being raised; and thus both Israel and the Philistines learned the infinite power of Him who had placed His Mercy-seat on the Ark. Therefore it was that in the Psalm of praise composed some years later it is said: "Thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts for men." (Psalm lxviii. 18.) And at every Feast of Weeks among the Israelites, at every Whitsuntide among Christians, have these notes of glory been sung, though now it is with the thought of a far greater captivity led captive, and of infinitely higher gifts received by Him of whom the Ark was the type.

The time for songs of joy was not come yet. The people of Beth-shemesh were full of bold curiosity. No one but the High Priest ever saw the Ark in its tabernacle, and even the Philistines

had not dared to look into it, but these men ventured to open it and pry into its contents. They were punished by a sudden stroke, by which it is supposed that seventy perished out of fifty thousand, who came thronging and curious to inspect the Ark with an idle gaze. Then the Bethshemites, alarmed, sent to Kirjath-jcarim, a city of the Gibeonites, and the next large town on the way to Shiloh, to desire that the Ark might be moved on; and so it was, to the house of a man named Abinadab. If a Gibeonite, he had learnt to slave humbly in the sanctuary, and, full of awe, he consecrated his son Eleazar to keep the Ark, not to minister as a priest, but to guard it from profanation. For there was no taking it back to Shiloh. The place lay waste and desolate, and there were no priests to receive it there; for though Phinehas had left a son older than Ichabod, he was a mere infant; and the Philistines, with all the marauding nations on all sides, were overrunning the unhappy, God-forsaken country, so that no one durst gather the nation into one; and Kirjath-jearim, the "city of the woods," lying lonely and deep among the thick forests of Mount Jearim, was a fit place for the Holy Ark to lie hidden from its enemies during this time of mourning and chastisement.

LESSON XLVI.

SAMSON AND THE LION.

B.C. 1120.-JUDGES xiv.; xv. I, 2.

And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.

And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.

Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.

But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath,