1 Samuel 6

Translator Notes

1. The narrative resumes directly from chapter 5, where the Ark caused devastation in Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. The phrase bisedeh Felishtim ('in the field/territory of the Philistines') uses sadeh in its broad sense of 'open country, territory' — the Ark was not confined to one city but had been passed from place to place during these seven months. Seven months is long enough to confirm that the plagues were not coincidence but pattern.

Translator Notes

1. The Philistines consult kohanim (priests) and qosemim (diviners) — their own religious specialists. The term qosem ('diviner') is elsewhere condemned in Israelite law (Deuteronomy 18:10), but here the narrative simply records Philistine practice without editorial comment. The question mah-na'aseh ('what should we do?') reveals genuine theological anxiety — they recognize they are dealing with a power they do not control. The phrase neshallechenu limqomo ('we shall send it to its place') already assumes the Ark must be returned; the only question is protocol.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The infinitive absolute hashev tashivu ('returning you must return') conveys emphatic obligation — this is not optional. The term asham ('guilt offering') is striking in a Philistine context; it is the technical term for the reparation offering in Leviticus 5:14-6:7, prescribed when someone trespasses against sancta (holy things). The Philistines have, in effect, violated sacred property. The conditional 'then you will be healed' (az teraf'u) links atonement to physical healing — a theology of causation that runs through the Hebrew Bible.

Translator Notes

1. The ophalim (rendered 'tumors'; KJV 'emerods') are swellings or growths — likely bubonic swellings given the association with mice/rats. The Septuagint makes the rodent-plague connection more explicit. Five of each matches the five Philistine city-lords (sarnim, a non-Semitic title unique to Philistine rulers — possibly related to Greek tyrannos). The golden replicas function as sympathetic magic: by crafting images of the affliction and sending them away with the Ark, the Philistines hope to send the plague itself away. The logic is: represent the disease, offer it to the offended deity, and the disease departs with the offering.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The verb netattem kavod ('give glory/weight') uses the same kavod that described God's presence in the Ark (the 'glory' departed Israel in 4:21-22). The Philistines are being asked to return the honor they stripped from Israel's God by capturing his Ark. The phrase ulai yaqel et-yado ('perhaps he will lighten his hand') uses the root q-l-l, the opposite of k-v-d ('heavy/glory') — a wordplay: give him weight/glory, and perhaps he will make his hand light. The triad 'from you, from your gods, from your land' indicates total systemic judgment — personal, religious, and agricultural.

Translator Notes

1. The verb tekabbedu ('you harden') shares the root k-v-d with kavod ('glory') from verse 5 — a sustained wordplay throughout the Philistine priests' speech: give God kavod (weight/glory) rather than giving your hearts koved (heaviness/hardness). The Philistines' knowledge of the Exodus (ka'asher kibbdu Mitsrayim uFar'oh et-libbam) demonstrates that the Exodus story had spread beyond Israel's borders as a cautionary tale. The verb hit'allel ('dealt harshly, made sport of') is the same verb used in Exodus 10:2 where God says he 'made a mockery of' Egypt.

Translator Notes

1. Every detail of the test is designed to stack the odds against a divine explanation. The cart is new (chadashah) — never used for any purpose, eliminating the possibility that the cows know the route from habit. The cows are nursing mothers (parot alot, literally 'suckling cows') whose calves will be taken away — every instinct will pull them back toward their young, not forward toward Israel. They have never worn a yoke (lo alah aleihem ol) — they are untrained, unbroken animals who have no habit of pulling a cart in any direction. If these cows walk straight to Beth-shemesh, it cannot be explained naturally.

Translator Notes

1. The golden offerings are placed in an argaz ('chest, coffer') beside the Ark — not inside it. The Philistines maintain a physical distinction between the Ark itself and their offering. The word argaz appears only here in the Hebrew Bible, suggesting it may be a Philistine loanword. The instruction veshilachtem oto vehalakh ('send it and it will go') is deliberately open-ended — no driver, no guide. The Ark's journey will be entirely self-directed, or rather, divinely directed.

Translator Notes

1. Beth-shemesh ('House of the Sun') was an Israelite town on the border with Philistia, in the Sorek Valley — the nearest Israelite settlement. The phrase derekh gevulo ('the road toward its territory') treats the Ark as having a home territory it might seek. The word miqreh ('chance, accident') from the root q-r-h ('to happen, to encounter') is the Philistines' null hypothesis — if the test fails, the plagues were random events, not divine punishment. This is one of the few places in the Hebrew Bible where characters explicitly consider a non-theological explanation for events.

Translator Notes

1. The verb kalu ('shut up, confined') emphasizes the deliberate separation of mothers from calves — maximizing the pull of instinct against the direction the Ark needs to travel. The narrative's spare, factual style — 'the men did so' (vayya'asu ha'anashim ken) — heightens the tension. Every element of the test is now in place.

Translator Notes

1. The word techoreihem ('their tumors') uses a different form than ophalim in verse 4 — techorim is the Qere (read) form while ophalim is the Ketiv (written) form. Both refer to the same swellings. The Masoretes apparently considered techorim the more appropriate term for public reading. The careful arrangement — Ark on the cart, chest beside it — mirrors the instructions given in verse 8.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayisharnah (from y-sh-r, 'to be straight, direct') is the key word — these cows went 'straight' against every natural impulse. The infinitive absolute halokh vega'o ('going and lowing') captures simultaneous action: they walked and moaned at the same time — driven forward by divine compulsion while crying out from maternal instinct. The phrase lo saru yamin usmol ('they did not turn right or left') echoes Deuteronomy's language for covenant faithfulness (Deut 5:32, 17:11, 28:14). The five Philistine lords (sarnim) follow as witnesses — the test must be observed to be valid.

Translator Notes

1. The wheat harvest places this in late May or early June — about seven months after the Ark's capture (which occurred around the autumn battles). The scene is pastoral and ordinary: farmers in a valley, working the harvest, who suddenly look up and see the Ark of God approaching on a driverless cart pulled by lowing cows. The verb vayismechu ('they rejoiced') is immediate and natural — the God of Israel's throne-seat is coming home. The valley (emeq) of Beth-shemesh is the Sorek Valley, the natural route from Philistia into the Judean hills.

Translator Notes

1. The cart stops of its own accord (vatta'amod sham) in a specific field belonging to a man named Joshua (Yehoshua, 'the LORD saves') — a name that resonates given the context of God's salvation of his own Ark. The large stone (even gedolah) becomes an impromptu altar. The people use the cart's wood as fuel and the cows themselves as the burnt offering (olah) — everything that carried the Ark is consecrated by sacrifice. Nothing that served this holy purpose returns to ordinary use. The cows that obeyed God against their nature are now given entirely to God.

Translator Notes

1. Beth-shemesh was a Levitical city (Joshua 21:16), which explains the presence of Levites to handle the Ark — a detail that shows the narrative's awareness of proper protocol. The Levites remove the Ark (horidu, 'brought down') and place it on the great stone. The men of the town then offer additional burnt offerings (olot) and fellowship sacrifices (zevachim) — a spontaneous festival of worship. The phrase bayyom hahu ('on that day') marks the event as historically specific and memorable.

Translator Notes

1. The Philistine lords have seen enough. They followed the cows to the border (v12), witnessed the Ark's arrival, and now return to Ekron — the last Philistine city to hold the Ark (5:10). The verb ra'u ('they saw') is simple but loaded: they witnessed the test's result with their own eyes. There is no reported reaction — no speech, no worship, no defiance. The narrative simply records their silent departure. Their test has been answered; Israel's God sent the plague.

Translator Notes

1. The catalog of five cities — Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, Ekron — is the standard list of the Philistine pentapolis, each governed by its own seren (lord). Each city contributes one golden tumor, acknowledging its share in the collective guilt. The list reads like a legal document recording the terms of reparation — each party named, each contribution specified.

Translator Notes

1. This verse expands the scope of the offering: the five golden tumors corresponded to the five lords, but the golden mice corresponded to all the cities — fortified (ir mivtsar) and rural (kofer haperazi, 'the open village'). The plague of mice affected the entire agricultural territory. The phrase ad hayyom hazzeh ('to this day') is the narrator's voice, writing from a later period when the stone was still a known landmark. Some scholars read avel hagedolah ('the great Abel/stone of mourning') as a reference to the grief that will follow in verse 19, but it may simply be a place-name or a descriptive term for the large stone.

Translator Notes

1. The verb ra'u ba'aron ('they looked into/at the Ark') uses the preposition be- which can mean either 'into' or 'at.' The Targum Jonathan interprets this as gazing at the Ark disrespectfully. Regardless of the exact nature of the offense, the principle is consistent throughout Samuel: the Ark's holiness does not discriminate between Israelite and Philistine, between curiosity and hostility. The number 'seventy men, fifty thousand men' (shiv'im ish chamishim elef ish) is syntactically anomalous — no conjunction connects the two numbers. Josephus (Antiquities 6.1.4) gives seventy. The grief of the people (vayyit'abbelu) mirrors the Philistines' distress — both peoples learn that proximity to the Ark is dangerous.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase YHWH ha'Elohim haqqadosh hazzeh ('the LORD, this holy God') piles up divine titles to express the overwhelming otherness the people now feel. The adjective qadosh ('holy') means fundamentally 'set apart, other, dangerous in its purity.' The verb ya'aleh ('will go up') anticipates the Ark's continued journey uphill into the Judean highlands — ultimately to Kiriath-jearim. Beth-shemesh, a border town in the lowlands, sends the Ark further into Israelite territory, distancing themselves from its lethal holiness.

Translator Notes

1. Kiriath-jearim ('City of Forests') sits higher in the Judean hills, about ten miles from Beth-shemesh. The verbs redu ('come down') and ha'alu ('bring up') reflect the topography: Beth-shemesh is in the lowland Sorek Valley, Kiriath-jearim in the highlands. The Ark will remain at Kiriath-jearim for twenty years (7:2) until David retrieves it — a remarkably long hiatus during which Israel's central sacred object sits in a private home rather than a sanctuary. The chapter ends not with triumph but with a handoff driven by fear. The Ark has come home, but no one knows how to live with it.