And they sent and gathered all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it kill us not, and our people. For there was deadly alarm throughout the city the hand of God was very heavy there;
Israel's defeat had left the ark of God in enemy hands. City by city, the Philistines now find that holding it is worse than losing a battle. Ekron's cry brings all their lords together for one decision. They will not bow. They will send away the God whose hand is crushing them.
Israel could not defend the ark. God defended it Himself.
What could be a more striking testimony to the living power and to the truth of the God of Israel than this very fact? Yes, Israel deserved to lie in the dust. Yes, they could not strike a single blow. Yes, they were struck hardest when they most dishonoured the ark of the LORD. But God watched over His own ark, which Israel's sin had so recklessly betrayed and lost. The destruction that went out was so marked that all the lords of the Philistines could not help feeling their utter weakness before the God of Israel.
Ekron was the last stop, and the Philistines had a reason for choosing it.
At last they send the ark to Ekron, the home of their idol Baalzebub. This was a god credited with the power to heal diseases, and perhaps they hoped he could bring relief from the plague. It was a vain hope. Here again God's judgment falls with greater severity, for we read, "There was a deadly destruction throughout all the city: the hand of God was very heavy there." So God upholds His glory and shows that demons have no power to free men from their chastening.
(Older translations read "a deadly destruction" here; the ESV has "a deathly panic.")
The ark had already travelled from Ashdod to Gath to Ekron. Each city's solution was to make the next city suffer.
The result is not that they turn to God, but that they send Him away, hoping to rid themselves of Him. Here we also see the selfishness that marks the world. As long as Ashdod escapes, what does it matter that Gath is tormented? As long as Gath escapes, what does it matter that Ekron is tormented? They do not want to die, but that does not stop death, along with deadly dismay, from coming.
Yet the journey itself had a purpose beyond judgment.
Men cannot get rid of their chastening so easily. Shifting the burden of an uneasy conscience will not remove the certainty of judgment. The ark's passage from one Philistine city to another is again a witness to the mercy and the holiness of God. He knocks, as it were, at the door of each place. He did the same at Sodom before judgment fell at last, to see if there would be any who feared Him. And as He passes from one place to another, we may well believe that there was no response except terror. There was no turning to Himself.
The gathered lords ask for one thing: that the ark go away and stop killing them.
They do not know what to do with the throne of God, the mercy seat, the vessel that held the mind of God! Moved by the same spirit, the people of Gadara begged the Lord to leave their region. It makes them uncomfortable because it judges them. For them the question is how to send this disturbing guest away, not whether they ought to send Him away. It does not occur to them to address themselves to Him.
They wanted the ark sent home. It did go back to Israel, but not to the place it had come from.
The enemy and their idol were forced to bow before the vindicating judgments of the LORD. They were only too glad to send the ark away with their guilt-offering. The ark goes to Kirjath-jearim and stays there twenty years. It never returns to the old order.
The Philistines learned by plague what Israel had learned by defeat.
The people of the Philistine cities, like the men of Israel, had to learn one thing. They could not handle the ark of the God of Israel and go unpunished. It is a very solemn matter to have to do with the Christ of God, and all will have to do with Him sooner or later.
- Hand — "The hand of God was very heavy there" is the verse's centre. God defended His own glory when His people could not strike a blow for it.
- Heavier — The hand grew heavier as the ark moved on. Ekron had a healing god of its own, and it suffered worst of all.
- Handed on — Each city's remedy was to burden the next. Self-interest shifts a trouble; it never removes the judgment behind it.
- Hardened — The lords gathered to ask how to send God away, never whether they should. The people of Gadara later made the same choice, begging the Lord to leave their region.
- Home — The ark returned to Israel, but never to the old order it had left. Sin can lose what is never given back.
and the men that died not were smitten with the hemorrhoids; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
The Philistines have captured God's ark and carried it from city to city, and God strikes each city in turn. Ekron is the last stop, and there the suffering peaks: death for some, shameful disease for the rest, and a whole city crying out to heaven.
God needs no help from His people to defend His name.
God allowed the ark to be removed from Shiloh and taken captive by the Philistines. In this He vindicated the holiness of His character. Now He will show its very captors that His power and majesty are unchanged. We need never be afraid that God will fail to vindicate either His holiness or His power. Our only fear should be that we are not in the condition in which we can be vessels of testimony for Him.
The Philistines had a reason for sending the ark to Ekron.
Finally the ark is sent to Ekron, the seat of their idol Baalzebub — a god credited with the power to heal diseases. Perhaps they hoped their god could bring relief from the plague. It was a vain hope. Here again God's judgment falls with increased severity, for we read, "there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there." So God maintains His glory and shows how powerless demons are to relieve people of chastisement.
The disease was not random. It matched a warning God had already put on record.
The presence of the ark also brings judgment down on the men who thought they had overcome God. For the Philistines there is misery and death. Anguish, secret pain and a shameful sore fall on them — the result of divine wrath (compare Deuteronomy 28:27).
Commentators differ on how to read the final phrase of the verse. One takes it as a cry that finds nothing above it:
"The cry of the city went up to heaven." But that heaven was empty for them. God was among them without their realising it, judging them on earth. The result is not that they turn to God, but that they send Him away, hoping to be rid of Him. Here too we see the selfishness that marks the world. As long as Ashdod is undisturbed, what does it matter if Gath is tormented? As long as Gath is undisturbed, what does it matter if Ekron is tormented?
Another reads the same words as a sign that the Creator hears even people sunk in idolatry:
If man, in his folly, tries to tie the glory of God to idols, God will maintain His glory by judgment. Yet in judgment God remembers mercy. God is the Creator, and though His creatures may be sunk in darkness and idolatry, when they cry to Him in their distress their cry will reach "up to heaven." Yet how often man uses the providential character of God's dealings in judgment as an occasion to harden his heart against God. So it was with the Philistines.
The Philistines never ask God for forgiveness. Their plan is simply to pass the ark on and hope the pain stops.
At last, desperation drives the lords of the Philistines to a conference. There they decide that what they thought was a victory over the Lord was only a defeat for themselves. The victory cost far too much to be endured any longer. So they take the world's way of finding relief — sadly, the only way the world will take. They will get rid of God. The men of Decapolis did the same when they begged our Lord to leave their region, though before their very eyes stood the proof of His love and power in setting the poor demon-possessed man free. Yes, the world will try to get rid of God. It may seem to succeed for a season, until the final day.
Why did the same ark bring no such disaster on Israel?
All this was new; the ark's presence in Israel had caused no such effects. God's presence among a redeemed people can produce blessing. His presence among the unredeemed can only bring judicial dealing. Morally there was nothing to choose between Israel and the Philistines. But the first were redeemed; the second were not.
- Captured, not conquered. Israel lost the ark, but God lost nothing. He showed His power to the very people who thought they had beaten Him.
- Heavy hand. Ekron was the seat of a god credited with healing. There the judgment fell hardest, showing how powerless idols are to lift what God has laid on.
- Shameful sore. The tumors were no accident of nature; they were the wrath God had already named in Deuteronomy 28:27.
- A cry upward. One writer hears the cry hitting an empty heaven. Another hears it reaching a Creator who remembers mercy. Either way, the Philistines hardened instead of turning.
- Removal, not repentance. Their answer was to send God away — what the Decapolis crowd also asked of Jesus, and the world's answer still.