1 Samuel 6
1 And the ark of the Lord was in the fields of the Philistines seven months.
The people of Philistia kept God’s sacred chest in their area for seven months.
2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? let us know wherewith we shall send off it to its place.
Then they summoned their priests and their (diviners/men who practice rituals to find out what would happen in the future). They asked them, “What should we do with the sacred chest of Yahweh? Tell us how we should send it back to its own land.”
3 And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not away empty; but ye must to a certainty return him a trespass-offering: then will ye be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.
Those men replied, “Send with it an offering [to show Yahweh that you know that you are] guilty [for having captured the chest], in order that the plague will stop. If you do that, and then if you are healed, you will know that Yahweh is the one who caused you to experience the plague.”
4 And they said, What shall be the trespass-offering that we shall return to him? And they answered, According to the number of the lords of the Philistines, five golden hemorrhoids, and five golden mice; for one plague affected them all, and your lords.
The people of Philistia asked, “What kind of offering should we send?” The men replied, “Make five gold models of the tumors on your skin, and five gold models of rats. Make five of each because that is the same number as the number of your kings, and because the plague has struck both you people and your five kings.
5 Therefore make images of your hemorrhoids, and images of your mice that devastate the land; and give glory unto the God of Israel: perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.
Make models that represent the rats and the tumors that are ruining your land. Make them in order to honor the god of the Israeli people. If you do that, perhaps he will stop punishing [IDM] you, and your gods, and your land.
6 And why will ye harden your heart, just as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Did not they, when he had wrought wonderful deeds among them, dismiss them, and they departed?
Do not be [RHQ] stubborn [IDM] like the Egyptians and their king were. [They did not do what the Israelis’ god told them to do, so he punished them]. After the Israelis’ god finished punishing them very severely, they were glad to allow the Israelis to leave their country [RHQ].
7 And now make a new wagon, and take two milch-cows, on which there hath come no yoke, and harness the cows to the wagon, and bring their calves home away from them:
“So you must build a new cart. Then get two cows that have very recently given birth to calves. They must be cows that have never been hitched to a cart [MTY]. Hitch those cows to the new cart, and take the calves away from their mothers.
8 And take the ark of the Lord, and place it into the wagon; and the articles of gold, which ye return him as a trespass-offering, ye must put in a casket alongside of it; and then send it away, that it may go.
Put the Israelis’ god’s sacred chest on the cart. Also put in the cart the five gold models of the tumors on your skin and the five gold models of rats. Put them in a small box alongside the sacred chest. They will be an offering to show that you know that you deserved to be punished [for capturing the sacred chest]. Then send [the cows] down the road, [pulling] the cart.
9 And then see, if it go up by the way to its own boundary, to Beth-shemesh, then hath he done us this great evil; but if not, then shall we know that not his hand hath smitten us; it is a chance which hath happened to us.
[Watch the cart as the cows pull it]. If they pull it to Beth-Shemesh [town] in Israel, we will know that it was the Israelis’ god who caused us to experience this plague. But if they do not take it there, we will know that it was not the god [MTY] of the Israelis who has punished us. We will know that it just happened.”
10 And the men did so; and they took two milch-cows, and harnessed them to the wagon, and their calves they shut up at home:
So the people did what the priests and men who predicted what would happen in the future told them to do. They [made] a cart [and] hitched two cows to it. They took the calves from their mothers.
11 And they placed the ark of the Lord in the wagon, and the casket with the mice of gold and images of their hemorrhoids.
They put in the cart Yahweh’s sacred chest and the box with the models of the gold rats and the tumors.
12 And the cows went straight forward on the way on the road to Beth-shemesh: on one highway they did go along, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
Then the cows started walking, and they went straight toward Beth-Shemesh. They stayed on the road, and were mooing all the time. They did not turn to the left or to the right. The five kings of the Philistia area followed the cows until they reached the edge of Beth-Shemesh.
13 And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and when they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it.
At that time, the people of Beth-Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley [outside the city]. [When the cows came along the road], they looked up and saw the sacred chest. They were extremely happy to see it.
14 And the wagon came to the field of Joshua, the Beth-shemite, and stood still there; and there was a great stone; and they split the wood of the wagon, and the cows they offered as a burnt-offering unto the Lord.
The cows pulled the cart into the field of a man named Joshua, and they stopped alongside a large rock. Several men from the tribe of Levi lifted from the cart the sacred chest and the box containing the gold models of the rats and the tumors, and they put them all on the large rock. Then the people smashed the cart and kindled a fire with the wood [from which the cart had been made]. They slaughtered the cows and burned their bodies/carcasses on the fire to be an offering for Yahweh that would be completely burned. That day the people of Beth-Shemesh offered to Yahweh [many] sacrifices that were completely burned, and [other] sacrifices.
15 And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord, and the casket that was with it, wherein were the articles of gold, and put them on the great stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered bunt-offerings and sacrificed sacrifices on the same day unto the Lord.
16 And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to 'Ekron on the same day.
The five kings from the Philistia area watched all this, and then they returned to Ekron, that same day.
17 And these are the golden hemorrhoids which the Philistines returned as a trespass-offering unto the Lord: For Ashdod one, for Gazzah one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for 'Ekron one.
The five gold models of tumors that they sent to be an offering to Yahweh to show that they knew that they deserved to be punished were gifts from [those five kings who were rulers of] Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron [cities].
18 And the golden mice were according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines under the five lords, from the fortified city, down to the open village, even unto the great stone whereon they had set down the ark of the Lord, and which is unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Beth-shemite.
The models of the five gold rats were gifts from the people of those five cities and the surrounding towns. The large rock at Beth-Shemesh, on which the [men of the tribe of Levi] set the sacred chest, is still there in the field that belonged to Joshua. When people see it, they remember [what happened there].
19 And he smote among the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, namely, he smote among the people seventy men and fifty thousand men: and the people mourned because the Lord had caused among the people a great slaughter.
But seventy men from Beth-Shemesh looked into Yahweh’s sacred chest, and because of that, Yahweh caused them to die. Then the people mourned very much because Yahweh punished [IDM] those men like that.
20 And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? and to whom shall it go up away from us?
They said, “No one [RHQ] can (resist the power of/stand in the presence of) Yahweh, our holy God, [and remain alive]! Where can we send the sacred chest?”
21 And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiryath-ye'arim, saying, The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord: come ye down, and fetch it up to you.
They sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-Jearim [city] to tell them, “The people of Philistia have returned Yahweh’s sacred chest to us! Come here and take it away!”
