Who Can Stand?

1 Samuel 6:1-21

Today we continue our series on Prophet and King, a series examining the life and death of the Prophet Samuel, and Saul, Son of Kish, Israel’s first anointed king. Before we start, I want to take a couple of minutes to give a recap of what has transpired since we began this series.

Many of you will recall that we started in I Samuel chapter 1, where we are introduced to Elkanah and his two wives: Hannah and Peninnah.  They lived in Ramah and they would go up annually to worship and sacrifice to the Lord at Shiloh.  Shiloh was where the Ark of the Covenant of God resided for more than 300 years, since Joshua and the Israelites conquered most of the promise land.  Now Hannah was barren and Peninnah had children with Elkanah.  Peninnah would provoke Hannah to tears because of Hannah’s inability to bear children.

During one of their annual trips to Shiloh, we find Hannah praying and weeping bitterly near the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.  Eli the priest at Shiloh accuses her of public drunkenness.  After Eli is made aware of her piety and her prayer he tells her, “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him.”

We are soon thereafter introduced to two other characters at Shiloh.  These are Eli’s two sinful sons Hophni and Phinehas.  Neither of them knew the Lord, and both used their office of the priesthood to take advantage of the people who came to sacrifice and to have immoral relationships with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting.  Now their father Eli, the priest, was aware of these sins and did nothing to stop his sons from continuing in their sins. 

Hannah eventually conceives and has a boy who she names Samuel.  After she has weaned Samuel, she takes him to Shiloh as she had vowed and she gives him to the Lord, putting him in the care of Eli.

One evening Samuel was sleeping when the Lord called out to him. Samuel thought it was Eli, and he kept going to Eli and waking him up to ask him what he wanted.  This occurred several times before Eli figured out that the Lord was calling Samuel.  Then Eli instructed Samuel, to say “speak Lord thy servant is listening” if it happened again.  The Lord does speak to Samuel again, and Samuel follows Eli’s instructions.  The Lord tells Samuel that He is going to bring about the judgement of Eli’s house because of the sins of his sons which he did nothing to stop.

We are then told that Samuel grew and that the Lord continued to appear to him at Shiloh and let none of Samuel’s word fail, and all of Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.

This might have been because those who came to Shiloh for the annual time of worship and sacrifice heard of Samuel and spread the news to all of Israel.

We also learned that Samuel was also the last of the judges.  So he represented the transition between judges and the kings of Israel.  We also learned that the Israelites had not driven the Philistines out of the land as the Lord had commanded them through Moses and Joshua.  The Philistines had gathered their forces for battle at Aphek, and Israel gathered their forces and went out to meet them in battle and camped at Ebenezer (a small town near Aphek). When battle got underway, Israel was defeated and the Philistines killed about 4000 of the Israelites on the battlefield. 

The Israelites, thinking that the Ark of the Covenant of God at Shiloh could save them, had Hophni and Phinehas bring the Ark of the Lord to Ebenezer.  The Philistines defeated the Israelites again in battle and they killed Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas.  The Philistines also took the Ark of the Covenant of God.  When Eli hears the news of the deaths of his sons and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant of God, he falls off his seat backwards and breaks his neck and dies.  Thus, what was spoken to Samuel concerning the judgement of Eli’s house came to pass.

Following the battle at Ebenezer, the Philistines take the ark from Ebenezer to Ashdod and put it in the temple of their God Dagon.  The next day they find the statue of Dagon on his face before the Ark.  They put the statue of Dagon back in its place, and the next day they find the statue of Dagon with his head and hands broken off in front of the Ark.  Then the Lord brought about a plague in Ashdod where the Philistines were afflicted with tumors.  They tried to stop the plague by taking the Ark to Gath.  The same plague broke out in Gath, and then they sent the Ark to Ekron where death filled the city and those who did not die were afflicted with tumors.

This brings us to today’s passage: I Samuel 6.  Please follow along with me in your Bibles as I read the passage, but before we get started, let’s pray for today’s message. Lord, I pray that You would teach us through Your Word, and that we would be listening and willing to obey what You have to show us.

When the ark of the LORD had been in Philistine territory seven months, the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”

They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means send a guilt offering to Him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why His hand has not been lifted from you.”

The Philistines asked, “What guilt offering should we send to Him?”

They replied, “Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and pay honor to Israel’s God. Perhaps he will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land. Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When He treated them harshly, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?”—I Samuel 6:1-6

As Carl alluded last Sunday, here we find that the Philistines are plagued with rats and many of the Philistine people are dying from some un-known reason but the ones that did not die were suffering from boils and tumors.  So the priest and the diviners go on to say in verses 7 thru 9:

“Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. Take the ark of the LORD and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way, but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the LORD has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance.”—I Samuel 6:7-9

This is actually a good test since it would take an act of God for a mother milk cow to overcome her natural desire and painful urge to return to her calf to be milked. Any mother who has nursed a baby would understand this.  Having two milk cows ignore this painful urge would doubly conform that God was behind the plagues and the tumors, and that He divinely intervened to have these cows go on to the Israelite territory instead of going back to their calves.  

In verse 10 we read:

So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. They placed the ark of the LORD on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors. Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.

Now the people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they rejoiced at the sight. The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and there it stopped beside a large rock. The people chopped up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. The Levites took down the ark of the LORD, together with the chest containing the gold objects, and placed them on the large rock. On that day the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD. The five rulers of the Philistines saw all this and then returned that same day to Ekron.  Note: we are not told if the plague stop and the rulers were healed.

These are the gold tumors the Philistines sent as a guilt offering to the LORD—one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. And the number of the gold rats was according to the number of Philistine towns belonging to the five rulers—the fortified towns with their country villages. The large rock, on which they set the ark of the LORD, is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh. –I Samuel 6:10-18

Next comes a verse that has confused theologians and Bible scholars for centuries.  The New International Version (NIV) of the Bible translates verse 19 as:

But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD.  The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them.

The New American Standard (NASB) translates verse 19 as:

And He struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord.  He struck down of all the people 50,070 men and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter.

The New Revised Standard Version (NSRV) of the Bible translates verse 19 as:

The descendants of Jeconiah did not rejoice with the people of Beth Shemesh when they greeted the ark of the LORD; and he killed seventy men of them. The people mourned because the LORD had made a great slaughter among the people.

The Cambridge Annotated Study Bible with Apocrypha translates verse 19 as:

The holy power of the ark was further attested when death struck the family of Jeconiah, which had failed to take part in the celebration of its return.

Bible commentaries offer many different explanation of the possible reason for the difference in the numbers 50,070 and 70 men.  Most translations say they were struck down because they looked into the ark of the Lord or looked at the ark in irreverent manner.  I guess it could be possible that all of these translations could be true in their own way.  i.e., Some looked in the ark, and some looked at the ark and were struck down (these may have been the descendants of Jeconiah and they may not have rejoiced when the ark arrived) and 50,000 of the people could have been struck down in addition to these 70. 

More than likely it was due to a minor transcribing error by the scribe that was copying the text from one of the earlier manuscripts left out the Hebrew î mem.

Some Hebrew scholars, say that by inserting the missing Hebrew letter î mem, the passage makes sense and would read “70 men; fifty out of a thousand;” which supposes that of the 1,400 people of the village of Beth Shemesh one twentieth of them were slain.

We really do not know for sure whether these men were 70 of the chiefs of the army that fought in the battle at Ebenezer when the ark was taken and therefore were disinclined to rejoice when it returned, or whether they were descendants of a man named Jeconiah and for whatever reason did not rejoice when the ark returned, or whether they were 70 priest who decided to look into the ark to see if the Philistines had stolen the original contents of the manna and the 10 commandments and Aarons rod that had budded.

What we do know for sure is that at least 70 men were struck down and we do know for sure that the people mourned their deaths and they considered it a great slaughter.    We also know for sure that the people of Beth Shemesh wanted to get rid of the ark.

We can learn more about the town of Beth Shemesh from Joshua chapter 21.

Now the family heads of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the other tribal families of Israel at Shiloh in Canaan and said to them, “The LORD commanded through Moses that you give us towns to live in, with pasturelands for our livestock.”—Joshua 21:1-2

Later, in Joshua 21:13, we read that Beth Shemesh was one of the towns that Joshua had given to the priest the descendants of Aaron to live and he also gave them the pasturelands around the town for their livestock.

As we pick up the story where we left off in verse 20, these verses from Joshua 21 raise another question.

and the men of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the LORD, this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?” –I Samuel 6:20

So if this is a town that belongs to the priests that are the descendants of Aaron the priest, then why are the men of Beth Shemesh asking this question and not seeking the answer from the Lord through the priests that own the town?  Some speculate that the priests were all struck down, but no one really knows for sure.

Continuing with this passage we read:

Then they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to your place.” –I Samuel 6:21

Why did the men of Beth Shemesh not take the Ark back to Shiloh where had been for at least 300 years?  That question begs to be answered. You can find part of the answer to that question in Psalm 78:

He also drove out the nations before them and apportioned them for an inheritance by measurement, and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.—Psalm 78:55

Here God, speaking of the Israelites, says:

Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep His testimonies, but turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers; they turned aside like a treacherous bow. For they provoked Him with their high places and aroused His jealousy with their graven images. When God heard, He was filled with wrath and greatly abhorred Israel; so that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, The tent which He had pitched among men, and gave up His strength to captivity and His glory into the hand of the adversary. –Psalm 78:56-61

This certainly sounds like the ark being given over to the Philistines.  Another part of the answer was found by archeologists who have dug up the ancient ruins of Shiloh.  They think that the city of Shiloh was destroyed in 1050 BC after the Ark was taken.

So what can we learn and apply as we read God’s Word and as we worship Him?  The main thing is that God is holy and His commandments are holy and should not be taken lightly.

The people from Beth Shemesh said “Who can stand in the presence of the LORD, this holy God?”

The psalmist in Psalm 130 asked and answered the same question.

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you,

so that you may be revered –Psalm 130:3-4 (NRSV)

          Now we may not have treated God’s Word as holy today, and we may not have approached Him in our quiet time this morning with reverence, but He is not going to destroy us for that. Why? Because we have believed in His son Jesus Christ, and God the Father has chosen to forgive all the sins of those who believe in Jesus His Son.  He has also chosen to give us the Holy Spirit to permanently dwell within us as a spiritual deposit and guarantee that we are forgiven.  Now we are covered with garment of Salvation and wrapped in the robe of the Righteousness of Christ.  Now we can come boldly before the throne of Mercy and Grace without fear of being struck down because of our un-holiness or fear that we may have forgotten one of the hundreds of rules in the Law.

          However, if we do not treat His Word and His commandments in a holy manner we must remember the following:

1.  His chosen people in Ebenezer, Shiloh and in Beth Shemesh were not exempt from His laws or His punishment pertaining to His Holiness and many of them were destroyed.

2.  We are exempt from the punishment of death but we have been chosen by God to be the temple of God and to have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God made flesh dwell within us.  Therefore, God will hold us to a higher standard of accountability.

3.  He might not destroy us, but don’t be mistaken; He will discipline us if we behave in a manner unbefitting of His Holiness because we are His sons and daughters.

Hebrews 12:9-10 tells us:

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.  

If we truly understand God’s holiness, we will do our best to treat our bodies as the temple of God, we will protect our eyes and our minds from looking on things that are unholy, and we will order our behavior to be in accordance with a manner befitting His holiness so that we can share in His holiness.