The Ark Is Returned (3)

The Philistines had taken the Ark of the Covenant, the holy ark of the Lord, and they brought it into the temple of their god, Dagon. The Philistines did not believe in the true God, but they had many false gods, or idols. Dagon was one of these gods. He was the god of water, and the people made him into an image which had the head and arms of a man and the tail of a fish.

The next day, when the Philistines rose up early in the morning to worship Dagon, they went into his temple and—oh, no, a terrible thing had happened! Had someone been in the temple during the night? The statue of Dagon had fallen to the floor, and the people saw that Dagon had fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord, almost as if he were bowing down to it.

The men set the idol back up, the way it was supposed to be, and went on their way. The next morning, they again rose early to worship Dagon. This time when they went into the temple, they found something even worse than before. Again, Dagon had fallen down in front of the ark, but this time his head and both hands had broken off! It was as if they had been cut off, and these hands had fallen across the doorway. Only the body of Dagon was left whole. This time the Philistines were afraid. They knew that they had seen something unusual. They knew that a mere person had not broken their idol. No Philistine would dare do this. No, the God of the Israelites had done it. He had more power than Dagon, and their god was bowing down to Him!

Did the Philistines stop to think clearly about their god Dagon? How powerful, how strong could he be if he must be fixed and helped by mere men?

God spoke very strongly to the people of that city while they had the ark. Many of them became terribly sick, and some died. Finally, the people cried, “This must be happening because we have that ark here. We will have to get rid of it! Why don’t we send it off to Gath?” So they sent the ark away, but when it was brought into the next city, Gath, God struck those people with that terrible sickness, too. Then those people sent the ark to a third city, Ekron. However, as soon as the people of Ekron saw it coming, they cried, “Oh no! They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people!”

For seven months (more than half a year) the ark stayed in the land of the Philistines, but the Philistines were not happy about it. Many of the people died, and many of those who did not die were afflicted by that terrible sickness. Finally, the Philistines called their priests and magicians together. “What should we do with this ark?” they asked.

“Send it back,” the priests said, “but don’t send it back empty. Be sure to send a gift with it. Send along an offering for their God, and then you will be healed.”

However, the priests were still going to test whether the sickness was because of the ark of God. Therefore, they told the Philistines to take two milk cows, cows which had calves, and which had never been hitched to a cart before. The Philistines put the ark of the Lord on the cart. After putting some gifts next to the ark in a little box, they hitched the cows to the cart and sent them off down the road. The men did not then turn around and go back home. No, they were waiting to see something. The priests had told them, “If the cows turn around, as they normally would, then we know that it was just by chance that all these things happened to us, but if the cows keep on walking towards the Israelite cities, then we know that it was God who sent the sickness.”

Now stop and think a moment: these two cows had just had baby calves. If they were sent up the road, would they not stop, turn around, and come back to their calves? Since they had never been tied to a cart before, would they not twist and turn and try to get that strange load off? What did happen? The cows did not twist to get their load off. They did not turn around to come back. No, they kept walking straight on the road, straight to Israel! Yes, they mooed and mooed, calling for their calves, but they did not turn left or right, neither did they look behind them.

The Philistines were amazed. Now they knew that an unusual thing had happened to them; they knew that it was the true God who had punished them with sickness. Did they leave their dead god Dagon, then, and follow the living God?

Some Israelites were busy working in their fields when they saw the cart, pulled by two cows, coming towards them. Then they saw the ark of the Lord which had been taken by the Philistines. The ark was really coming back! Oh, how thrilled and happy the men were. The Levites quickly took it off the cart and prepared sacrifices in thanksgiving to God, but some men were eager to look inside the ark. The ark was usually behind the veil in the tabernacle, and no one except the high priest could look on it. They wanted to see what was in it and they sinned— they looked inside. God was angry with these men, and He killed many of them for this sin. Remember, God will never let sin go by without punishing it, sooner or later.

The ark of the Lord was then brought into the house of a man named Abinadab. The Bible tells us that it remained there for a long time, for twenty years. During that time the people of Israel were shown their sin. They saw how wicked they had been before the Lord, and they came to Samuel. Samuel told them, “If you return unto the Lord with your whole heart and throw away your idols, then He will save you from the Philistines.”

The Israelites did so. They threw away their false gods and began to pray to the true God again. Then God again saved Israel in a battle with the Philistines by sending a terrible thunderstorm. After losing that battle the Philistines never bothered the Israelites again as long as Samuel was alive.

Maybe you think that we do not have idols, but— are you sure about that? An idol is anything that we love more than God, anything that we give all our time to, other than God. It could be our money, our books, our fun, or even our looks. Like Dagon, these idols cannot save us in the day of death! As Samuel said, if we want to be saved, we must “return unto the LORD with all your hearts.” Pray that the Lord will give you a new heart and turn your heart and desire back unto Him.

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