1 Samuel 6
1 The people of Philistia kept God’s sacred chest in their area for seven months.
Now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines for seven months.
2 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.”
And the Philistines sent for the priests and those who were wise in secret arts, and said to them, What are we to do with the ark of the Lord? How are we to send it away to its place?
3 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.”
And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it without an offering, but send him a sin-offering with it: then you will have peace again, and it will be clear to you why the weight of his hand has not been lifted from you.
4 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.
Then they said, What sin-offering are we to send to him? And they said, Five gold images of the growths caused by your disease and five gold mice, one for every lord of the Philistines: for the same disease came on you and on your lords.
5 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.
So make images of the growths caused by your disease and of the mice which are damaging your land; and give glory to the God of Israel: it may be that the weight of his hand will be lifted from you and from your gods and from your land.
6 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].
Why do you make your hearts hard, like the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians? When he had made sport of them, did they not let the people go, and they went away?
7 “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.
So now, take and make ready a new cart, and two cows which have never come under the yoke, and have the cows yoked to the cart, and take their young ones away from them:
8 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.
And put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the gold images which you are sending as a sin-offering in a chest by its side; and send it away so that it may go.
9 [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.”
If it goes by the land of Israel to Beth-shemesh, then this great evil is his work; but if not, then we may be certain that the evil was not his doing, but was the working of chance.
10 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.
And the men did so; they took two cows, yoking them to the cart and shutting up their young ones in their living-place:
11 They put in the cart Yahweh’s sacred chest and the box with the models of the gold rats and the tumors.
And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the chest with the gold images.
12 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.
And the cows took the straight way, by the road to Beth-shemesh; they went by the highway, not turning to the right or to the left, and the sound of their voices was clear on the road; and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the edge of Beth-shemesh.
13 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.
And the people of Beth-shemesh were cutting their grain in the valley, and lifting up their eyes they saw the ark and were full of joy when they saw it.
14 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.
And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and came to a stop there by a great stone: and cutting up the wood of the cart they made a burned offering of the cows to the Lord.
Then the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest in which were the gold images, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh made burned offerings and gave worship that day before the Lord.
16 The five kings from the Philistia area watched all this, and then they returned to Ekron, that same day.
And the five lords of the Philistines, having seen it, went back to Ekron the same day.
17 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].
Now these are the gold images which the Philistines sent as a sin-offering to the Lord; one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron;
18 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].
And the gold mice, one for every town of the Philistines, the property of the five lords, walled towns as well as country places: and the great stone where they put the ark of the Lord is still in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite to this day.
19 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.
But the Lord sent destruction on seventy men of the people of Beth-shemesh for looking into the ark of the Lord; and great was the sorrow of the people for the destruction which the Lord had sent on them.
20 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?”
And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to keep his place before the Lord, this holy God? and to whom may he go from us?
21 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!”
And they sent men to the people living in Kiriath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have sent back the ark of the Lord; come and take it up to your country.
